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A small update on my hobby progress. With the extra time off amongst all the COVID-19 shutdowns, I've managed to paint up another small batch of Sisters. In addition to the four shown below, I'm also 98% done with my first Sister Superior as well as my Mistress of Repentance for my Repentia squad. Both just have their purity seals to be done as well as the small amount of flesh on the Mistress of Repentance. You might also notice that the shade of red on the Sisters' robes has changed slightly. Unfortunately, my old pot of Blood Red finally carked it so I have switched over to Evil Sunz Scarlet. It isn't quite as extreme of a difference as my photos make it appear so don't be too alarmed!





I hope you're all going alright amongst the COVID-19 kerfuffle.
Until next time
-zahnib

You paint some pretty Sisters, man. Never sad to see that classic look.

The gals are looking sharp, really nice seeing this army developing from the start.

Thanks for the kind feedback guys Hopefully I'll have a bit more variety going forwards, I've almost finished all of of my helmeted sisters. I've also got my Vosttoyans to start but I may hold off on them until I've got my Sisters of Battle completed.

Another good looking bunch of sisters. I know what you mean about the blood red running out, it was such a nice colour and evil sunz scarlet just isn’t quite the same.

If only they'd kept the original colours and just expanded the line!! I'm in the same boat with my Ultramarine blue! Macragge blue is a bit too dark for my liking.

Yeah, my ultramarine blue dried out too and I still haven’t replaced it yet. I’ve been branching out to other vendors, so will have to explore other similar colours if Macgragge blue is too dark

From doing a bit of reading Vallejo Model Colour Ultramarine Blue sounds as thought it might be a good substitute. Some testing is in order!

Quick wee hobby update. Over the past few weeks, I've slowly been painting up more Sisters as well as stripping and prepping some new reinforcements in the form of Serpahims and Retributors. All of my SoB models are second hand and have come from a variety of sources so have required a bit of work to get to the priming stage. Its been quite enjoyable though, adds another level of involvement with each model.

So, in terms of models; I've got two Seraphim squads with 5 Seraphim apiece. They are mostly finished up in terms of prepping. The bases were a bit of a challenge as the metal tabs are quite small. I first bent them in a slight v-shape to give the tabs a bit of friction with the base and then filled in the sides with some plastic sprue off-cuts, using some Revell plastic cement to weld them to the base. In addition, I've cleaned up five Retributors: two with heavy flamers, two with multi-meltas and one with a heavy bolter. These were a bit more straight forward in terms of prepping though I am pinning the arms to give them a bit more strength. Unfortunately, I'm missing one of the backpacks for the heavy flamer so I've been looking into pewter casting, inspired by btoliver311's resin casting escapades over on his P&M blog. But we'll see how I get on with that.




Five Retributors with some Seraphim in the background. The plastic spacers either side of the Seraphim's base tabs will hopefully look a bit less janky once primed.


Hope everyone is doing well and keeping safe.
Thanks for stopping by.
Until next time,
-zahnib

The heavy weapon ladies are some of the best in the range. Bet they end up looking real sweet.

 youwashock wrote:
The heavy weapon ladies are some of the best in the range. Bet they end up looking real sweet.

Yeah, they are some of my favourites as well! Really looking forward to painting some bigger weapons, especially the burny ones!

Excited to see the next batch and stripping metal miniatures really is quite relaxing, I curse more when I try it on plastics.

 Viterbi wrote:
Excited to see the next batch and stripping metal miniatures really is quite relaxing, I curse more when I try it on plastics.

It certainly feels a lot safer! I've got some plastic Space Marines that need stripping whic I've been putting off.
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Small update. I've finished cleaning and the hard part of basing. I'm a bit worried about the strength of the Seraphim's "flying stands" but hopefully they'll hold. The helmeted Superior had been snipped off her's by her previous owner. Luckily I had a spare tab from another Seraphim which I drilled out and pinned the tabless Superior. I've still got to pop some basing sand on them and then they'll be ready to prime! I'm thinking I'll leave the backpacks off for painting as the wing parts cover a lot of the detail on the rear of the sisters.



Thanks for stopping by.
Until next time,
-zahnib

Progress, progress. Nothing too exciting to show but I've been making some good foundational progress. I've based and undercoated all of the Seraphims and Retributors from my last update as well as made a start on my final batch of battle sisters.

I've also been thinking about my basing theme. For the longest time I've had the idea of my three armies fighting in a dark grey urban cityfight setting, inspired by the old Eye of Terror global campaign from 2003. Over the years I've collected together all the OOP FW ruins I could find with this in mind. However, the dark basing theme has always seemed a little drab, maybe I just haven't quite got the right recipe but I feel a change may be in order. I'm still thinking cityfight but maybe with more of a dusty bone-coloured rubble than just straight grey? After seeing mcmattila's beautiful bases over on his P&M blog I thought I'd a make a quick mock-up with one of my recently painted SoB. mcmattila has graciously allowed me to use the base from one of his pictures.


Light bone-coloured rubble (courtesy of mcmattila) vs. my current tratidional grey cityfight basing theme

I'll also be planning on using the same basing theme with my Ultramarines and Vostroyan so hopefully, I can decide on a colour that works well for all three armies. Does the light bone-coloured theme still work as a cityfight base? Is there another theme you think I should try? Let me know what you think!

Thanks for stopping by.
Until next time,
-zahnib

This is my take. The light bone-coloured rubble looks better because it contrasts with the black armour, while your traditional grey doesn't. It's why I chose black bases to go with my white armoured Chaos Warriors. Assuming your Vostroyen are predominantly red, they and your Ultramarines should look fine on either. Looking at the above base, I wouldn't read it as a cityfight base - but if you sprinkled in some larger pieces of obvious masonry in the same colour (throughout squads, not necessarily every miniature), it would probably work fine. Alternatively, you might want to try a lighter grey or blue base for your cityfight rubble - just watch the contrast with your Ultramarines. Hope that helps!

 Arakasi wrote:
This is my take. The light bone-coloured rubble looks better because it contrasts with the black armour, while your traditional grey doesn't. It's why I chose black bases to go with my white armoured Chaos Warriors. Assuming your Vostroyen are predominantly red, they and your Ultramarines should look fine on either. Looking at the above base, I wouldn't read it as a cityfight base - but if you sprinkled in some larger pieces of obvious masonry in the same colour (throughout squads, not necessarily every miniature), it would probably work fine. Alternatively, you might want to try a lighter grey or blue base for your cityfight rubble - just watch the contrast with your Ultramarines. Hope that helps!

I have more or less the same take. Possibly another approach is to go with McMattila's colours, but include some rusty metal pipes, cabling, manhole covers, etc, on the bases? With apologies for posting my own models, I'll post a squad of mine to show you the sort of thing I mean...

Mine is more industrial than the urban look you want, but maybe possible to adapt a little by using cleaner metals with less rust, and some obvious city references like fallen lamp posts?

Arakasi wrote:This is my take. The light bone-coloured rubble looks better because it contrasts with the black armour, while your traditional grey doesn't. It's why I chose black bases to go with my white armoured Chaos Warriors. Assuming your Vostroyen are predominantly red, they and your Ultramarines should look fine on either. Looking at the above base, I wouldn't read it as a cityfight base - but if you sprinkled in some larger pieces of obvious masonry in the same colour (throughout squads, not necessarily every miniature), it would probably work fine. Alternatively, you might want to try a lighter grey or blue base for your cityfight rubble - just watch the contrast with your Ultramarines. Hope that helps!

Thanks for your thoughts Arakasi! I very much agree! The light base colour seems to compliment the sisters' dark scheme quite nicely and I think it would most likely work quite well with both the Vostroyans and Ultramarines. I also get what you mean about it not really reading as a cityfight base. It is tricky on the smaller 28mm bases unless you go all out. I have interspersed some barbed wire and metal debris throughout my squads but in quiet a reserved manner.

Fifty wrote:

 Arakasi wrote:
This is my take. The light bone-coloured rubble looks better because it contrasts with the black armour, while your traditional grey doesn't. It's why I chose black bases to go with my white armoured Chaos Warriors. Assuming your Vostroyen are predominantly red, they and your Ultramarines should look fine on either. Looking at the above base, I wouldn't read it as a cityfight base - but if you sprinkled in some larger pieces of obvious masonry in the same colour (throughout squads, not necessarily every miniature), it would probably work fine. Alternatively, you might want to try a lighter grey or blue base for your cityfight rubble - just watch the contrast with your Ultramarines. Hope that helps!

I have more or less the same take. Possibly another approach is to go with McMattila's colours, but include some rusty metal pipes, cabling, manhole covers, etc, on the bases? With apologies for posting my own models, I'll post a squad of mine to show you the sort of thing I mean...
Mine is more industrial than the urban look you want, but maybe possible to adapt a little by using cleaner metals with less rust, and some obvious city references like fallen lamp posts?

Thanks for your thoughts as well Fifty . Yes I've been thinking if I go with the lighter base colour making some rusty metal debris to compliment it would be nice. Those are some good looking scouts and yes I see what you mean. I'll have to do some testing perhaps.

Wow, those are some really lovely Sisters... beautifully painted, and good job on your systematic recovery efforts. Like someone said, I'm never sorry to see the OML paint scheme. I collected and painted about 3500 points of metal Sisters before the plastics arrived, so I can sympathize on broken Seraphim stands (I replaced all of mine with acrylic rods) and when you described bending the tabs into the slottabases, I could feel it in my fingertips. I'm also very excited to see your inquisitorial stormtroopers comer around... I love those classic models. Thanks for an excellent and detailed thread!

 MacPhail wrote:
Wow, those are some really lovely Sisters... beautifully painted, and good job on your systematic recovery efforts. Like someone said, I'm never sorry to see the OML paint scheme. I collected and painted about 3500 points of metal Sisters before the plastics arrived, so I can sympathize on broken Seraphim stands (I replaced all of mine with acrylic rods) and when you described bending the tabs into the slottabases, I could feel it in my fingertips. I'm also very excited to see your inquisitorial stormtroopers comer around... I love those classic models. Thanks for an excellent and detailed thread!

Thank you for the kind words MacPhail and welcome to the blog! Its been quite enjoyable creating an army from recovered models. Blimey!! I'll cetrainly check out your P&M blog, that sounds like quite the force! Haha, ah yes I imagine it is a shared trauma for anyone who has collected SoB. I did consider popping them onto acrylic flying stands but opted to stick with the originals as all but two of the Seraphims still had their's intact. The new curved flying stands do look nice though.
Yes! The Stormtroopers!! I've been thinking I might paint them up after I've finished off my battle sisters, give myself a bit of a break before jumping into doing the Seraphims and Retributiors. I've also got the Stormtrooper's Rhino partially assembled. I managed to pick up some of the Forge World doors as well as some extra armour so looking forward to getting into that.
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Speaking of finishing off my battle sisters here is a small update on them. I've been enjoying painting my first special weapons sister. This was also the first time painting in sub-assemblies was necessary, that big heavy bolter covers so much nice detail! Edge highlighting is done on about half of them. I've figured out a good recipe for red of the habits as well though of course, it took about 15 sisters to figure out! I may go back at some point and redo the habits of the previous sisters.



Thanks for stopping by.
Until next time,
-zahnib

That red really is great, nice transitions between the colours too. I have to agree with the others that the paper bases work better with your sisters. The contrast really helps them stand out more. Another alternative that might be less rework could be to drybrush the original to a much lighter grey. Though I suspect to get it looking right you would have to change the Basecoat from black to grey anyway. Having bits of city terrain on their bases sounds really cool too.

Gotta second gobert, red is nice and happy you found your final recipe for it!
And as someone who has worked with the new flying stands (albeit only on Kharadron Overlords and Space Marine minis) I can say, they look nice, but they are not that nice to work with or I'm not doing it right).

And doing some stormtroopers after finishing the current WIP sisters may seem like a good idea, especially to look if the colors on the base will then fit both forces.

Nice work on the Sisters! I'd go light brown bases for better contrast.

gobert wrote:That red really is great, nice transitions between the colours too. I have to agree with the others that the paper bases work better with your sisters. The contrast really helps them stand out more. Another alternative that might be less rework could be to drybrush the original to a much lighter grey. Though I suspect to get it looking right you would have to change the Basecoat from black to grey anyway. Having bits of city terrain on their bases sounds really cool too.

Thank you gobert! It is certainly the step that takes the longest but I'm quite happy with the end result. Mmmm, I've thought along similar lines, was considering trying to give my current base scheme a brown wash of some sort but I think it's best to just start from a brown base as you've said.

Viterbi wrote:Gotta second gobert, red is nice and happy you found your final recipe for it!
And as someone who has worked with the new flying stands (albeit only on Kharadron Overlords and Space Marine minis) I can say, they look nice, but they are not that nice to work with or I'm not doing it right).
And doing some stormtroopers after finishing the current WIP sisters may seem like a good idea, especially to look if the colors on the base will then fit both forces.

Thank you Better late than never I say! I've still got a decent number of troops to go so I guess its not so bad. Ah that is good to know. I imagine they would take a bit of finessing to balance the miniatures properly and especially with metal models that could be a bit of a pain! And yes I agree, though the classic studio scheme for them is even darker than the sisters so the lighter base will probably make even more of a difference.

Monsterzonk wrote:Nice work on the Sisters! I'd go light brown bases for better contrast.

Welcome Monsterzonk, and one more for team light-base!
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Alright, votes are in, new base colour it is! Thanks for all your input guys, it can be really helpful to get some outside perspective. I think the lighter base will give some nice contrast as many of you have noted. Plus the schemes for my other forces (both real and imagined) are mainly quite dark so the lighter base colour should work well across them all. mcmattila was kind enough to give me the recipe so once stores start reopening I'll pop down and get the necessary paints. In the meantime, work continues on the sisters. I've also got to pick up some paints to tackle their faces, its been a long time since I've painted flesh and I've never gotten a result I've been 100% happy with so it may take a bit of experimentation.

Thanks for stopping by.
Until next time,
-zahnib

I am always envious of people who can edge black and make it look that good. It goes horribly blotchy whenever I do it.

 Fifty wrote:
I am always envious of people who can edge black and make it look that good. It goes horribly blotchy whenever I do it.

Thanks Fifty! Going back in with your base colour really helps neaten up the lines

Great start on the batch of new Sisters!

Howdy all. I've pretty well finished off my last batch of battle sisters, just the faces to go. Unfortunatley I don't have the right paints so I've got some shopping I need to do. Also on the list are the paints for the lighter base scheme. Both my local GW and FLGS are still closed so I'll have to wait a bit before picking up those paints. In the meantime, I've made a start some SoB Retibutors as well as my Inquisitorial Stormtroopers. I'm looking forward to a bit of a change with the stormtroopers. The old models are great and for the most part, the details on them are nice and crisp. One trooper did have a bad case of mould slippage on his head but nothing that some greenstuff couldn't fix. I'll post some pictures of the sisters once their faces and bases are done.



Thanks for stopping by.
Until next time,
-zahnib

Hello all! A bit of an update on my Sister of Battle. I've almost finished up my first Retributor squad, just their Superior and some Heavy Flamer sisters to go. Unfortunately, I'm missing the backpack for one of the Heavy Flamer sisters, I've been thinking of trying to cast one myself but don't have nay of the gear so that would be quite the undertaking. Alternatively, if anyone has a spare do let me know! I really enjoyed painting the Retributors, they've got so much nice detail on them despite their age. As you might have noticed I also did a bit of a body swap with one of the Multi Melta sisters to bring in a bit of variety. The tubing on the rear of the model is a little different but still looks the part and it all lines up.



I've also made a pretty good start on my Inquitoiral Stormtroopers. I've got just over half the squad painted but I've only got a photo of my test model so that'll have to do for now.



I hope everyone is keeping well.
Thanks for stopping by.
Until next time,
-zahnib

Awesome job on the sisters, they look really cool! The heat stress on the multimeltas are particularly good

Nice update, the eyes on the sisters are unreal, knowing how small those minis are