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Really great stuff as ever. Love the marine pulling the sword put of the scabbard.

D

Technically speaking, your painting ability is nothing short of perfect. every highlight is crisp and precise and as a whole the model has a very professional, subdued look about it.

However, from an artistic standpoint, the colour choice is a little...off. I understand you're limited to the Deathwatch palette, so there's not much room for diversity there(armour has to be black, left arm has to be silver etc).

However, the minimalistic approach you have gone for leaves the model looking unfinished in places. For example, I really like the cream coloured cape, but the highlights are a little too subdued, so it looks like you didn't finish it, as does the filligree. I think picking that out in a nice pale gold or something would go miles towards making it look more complete. Also, the highlights on the black armour I feel could stand to be a just a little bit bolder, as the silver of the gun and arm dominate the model, and make it hard to focus on the rest of the piece.

I guess what I'm saying is that I feel the white wings and silver arm are TOO bold, and I feel as though they are dominating the model, and just adding a spot colour to the front or back somehow would give it a certain je neu saix qua. Its just missing that little extra pop.

Again, this is all my $0.02, I'm not a very good painter, I'm more on the theoretical side of it than the practical, so take it for what it's worth.

Again, the limitations of photographic endeavours without a proper camera or lightbox.

I do concur that some spot colour both on the cape and the model itself would subdue the white but here we are sliding into the mire that is painting to fit the photographic situation, wich is one severely lacking in hardware. The main problem here is that I am unable to counteract the natural flare-effect wich 'eats up' the neuances in the bright surfaces of the metallics, white and cream. These are better defined (even if only little) in reality and I am loathe to over-highlight to make it carry through the residual flare.

I could write pages in the intricate and sometimes arcane ways of painting black since different end results require quite radically different approaches. ''Bolder'' is a term slightly hard to translate in this case because you can never really make black a ''bold'' colour. Essentially, but this is not always true; the brighter highlight used the more ''polished'' the surface appears. But this also makes it increasingly sensitive to placement, dynamic interaction with previous layers and above all thickness of highlights. Because the brightness of the extreme highlight directly corresponds to the width of the darkest highlight layer so the brigher the highlight: the narrower the highlights must be or it will look like crap.

What I was going for here was not a high-polish, but rather a more neutral black to match ''studio'' colouration. I have concidered adding a few fields of free-hand designs to sneak some more detail onto the model (heraldic design to a kneepad, some kind of design along the hem of the cloak etc) and perhaps paint up and slap on a few purity seals as well as adding some scrapes and dents but that would be something i will have to come back to. Alpha Legion models have been assigned priority due to the high risk of a new codex around the corner. Also with the release of the first Horus Heresy book in October from our friends at Forge World I really need to get them out of the way to clear space for my Heresy era army.

I think you did a great job, I love the subdued black. If only I could paint black half as good......

The only thing I can fault is it looks like you painted the cloak in a hurry, the basic shading on it looks a bit rushed, especially in the folds you could shade it a bit nicer (could also be due to the photo being from the side angle).

Black is a little trixy but once you get the hang of it.. you know, it's reduced to just being timeconsuming.
And i concur with you, the cloak didn't turn out all that well in the photos. Rather nice in RL though, a bit flat seen through a camera.

On a completely unrelated note I should perhaps start to accept comissions again, I rather enjoy making terrain and doing odd minis. Maybe I should swing by my local GW-provider and snap some shots of all the terrain and black box content I have touched up for them. Especially the winter table since I did it as good as single-handed. Might as well do it this afternoon, I need new brushes if I am going to paint anything tonight anyway, the fine detail is beginning to fray and my small drybrush is close to desintegrating.

I can't really provide smart or constructive feedback like archmagos_amadeus, because I can't paint to save my life.
That said, he looks amazing. I agree that the eye lenses would look better Orange, but he looks amazing. It always staggers me how you manage to inject such character into every model you do.
Kudos man, brilliant work as ever.

It's okay. You make up for it with steamy, unabashed flattery instead Dave.

And now for something completely different: Found my Space Hulk genestealer sprues in a drawer today, I am getting very very keen on painting up the Broodlord just for fun. It's such a sweet model.

Found a Mk 5 body fer the job ...........

Actually, it think the model is near perfect. It simply needs a little something to make it pop as, due to the colour palette, it is quite a subdued figure. A little bit of OSL (and I stress the "little". You do not want to go overboard on it or you will ruin the balance) on the eyes would do very nicely indeed. That, and a little work on the cape as Amadeus suggested would leave you with one winning figure.

Goodie; random thought miss dee. did you want an exact copy or a similarly posed model? Boring to make copies you know. =)

Something close if poss

So I was bored an unmotivated, so I built and started painting this little thing.
Mechanicus mobile airdefence unit, with interchangeble Icarus laser an ''quad'' autocannon. Now I know it's per se not a quad due to just two barrels but I recon anyone who wants to bitch about that isn't worth playing against anyway.
Model is in ealy stages of basecoating, just thought I'd share.

Love it when you're bored STC... provides unlimited entertainment.

The wonders of having a way too large bitz-box, I am thinking of maybe bulding an AM aegis line to go with it so the skitarii and their magos (the primed/unprimed blurry guys in the rear of the pics) have something to hide behind. I have this kind of great but blurry idea of an engineering vehicle to go with them but it's not all that well-formed yet and a bit dependent on how many more track-lenghts I can dig out of the aforementioned box..

[One bitzbox is a lie, it's more akin to a whole closet full..]

I'm that way with my marine infantry bits... they fill up two large bins storage systems for screws and bolts and such. I suppose it's not really all that much compared to some, but it seems like an awful lot to me.

Have you noticed how the bitz tends to layer like geological strata? In the bottom corners you can find those odd bitz from the mid-90's while the newer stuff kind of floats on top. I blame material density, all those 2nd ed models still had a good portion of lead in them..

Hahaha thats so true!

Love it, has the prefect mechanicus vibe

Also, nice profile pic, ive got Priests of Mars sitting on my desk from the pre-order but not got round to reading it yet.

Great book, but supremely annoying. it's not a stand-alone book but the first of a series.

Well, Stripped out of any motivation to pick up a paintbrush and staring at my half-finished trio of plasma-packing legionaires I turned to my bitbox for som aimless rummaging for some odd bit. I think it was a meltagun fuel canister, you know the ones you get on the sm devastator sprue.

It went slightly overboard.

Wich you should be guessing, concidering that there's an update. With pictures.

So yeah, Skitarii. That's some darn fancy stuff. Sooo.. this is me, ignoring codex restrictions and ''what will I use these as'' and making my skitarii as I envision them. I am sorry J-Paint but hoods on skitarii? that gak's lame, they are not Magi or enginseers of the mechanicum you know..

They're soldiers. The most dangerous ones the imperium can deploy barring the adeptus astartes. Cyberneticly augumented with implant weapons from mankind's lost age of dominance, mechanised armor, chemboosters, noonspheric manifold communication grids and digital weapons. All of a greater sophistication and more advanced technological origin than any other found in the wider imperium. These are the men and women that literally fight in the shadows of the gross-displacement warengines of the Titan Legions and march into battle beside the city-leveling warmachines of the Legio Reductor and Centurio Ordinatus. To display them as mere guardsmen is a great injustice.



These two are ready for the primer, third in the pipeline. And yes, yes.. I know I forgot to drill out the boltpistol barrel, it has been done post-photography.






Not too shabby eh? I am very pleased with these ones, Got my Blanchitzu on.


Rho-Alpha-Leveticus-0100000111010001001111100001001001000010111010010101001010010001000011101010111110010101111001011-//D-0213-Ryza.
Skitarri Clan-Commander, Magos Explorator Detachment 0213- Mundus-Alpha Forge, Ryza.






Miu-Eta-02 [Command-element combat detatchment]-//D-0213-Ryza.

NICE!! Where are the awesome legs from?

After having finished Priests of Mars (which, as you said, was awesome ), and i never thought id say this, but im starting to lean towards this version of skitarii as well. Not only does it make the skitarii seem meaner and more of a singular combat purpose, but i imagine it would make the Magi stick out wonderfully in a full force.

Love the pole-arm weapon, just great!

really cool models! are those infinity legs? And great Idea 40king that cherib up, I have that servo skull and the cherib I think i know what im doing with it now!

Thanks, hmm the commander has a pair of necron Pariah legs and the other one has a pair from some old robot model. Maybe an early battletech thing, I have no idea. I can post a pic of one that isn't carved up so maybe you can identify it.

Got to see if ebay can supply me with more pariahs.. sure make for expensive skitarii.

Very nice Skitarii, the Pariah one might be a bit too robotty for my taste but to each his own.

Maxmini makes pretty cool mechanical body parts as well
http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12&products_id=101
Just put a small spacer in between those legs and they look pretty good, I've done a few marines like that myself.
Although on second thought, as they're kinda meant for marines they might be too beefy for skitarii.

Wow really nice kitbashing. Although I have no idea where most of the bits have come from!

D

Oh you know, a little here. a little there.

vehicle crews, commandkits.. you amass a quite a mass of odd bitz over the years. Got to try to lay my grubbin' claws on the new gk bits, i do fancy those.. not the actual knights but all the odds and ends.. oooh yeah.

*sigh*

My bits box is currently inadequate. :(

What paint scheme are you thinking for those crazy cyborgs?

D

I am not quite sure, I want to try to step away from the AdMech red on the Skitarii because as far as all ''viable'' references to their appearance [Mechanicum, Priests of Mars -Graham McNeill & Titanicus - Dan Abnett] it is not the norm. Rather their appearence is a product of the culture expressed by their parent Forge World and by extention branch of arms. Skitarii clans attached to Titan Legions bear the heraldry, insignia and colours of ''their'' legion, special branches like the ordo reductor, Magos explorator and the houshold troops of the Centurio Ordinatus have their own as well intermixed with the ''regular'' clan insignia.
We have to keep in mind here that the term 'Skitarii' is equal to 'Adeptus Astartes' and so on. It refers to a body of troops that within it has vastly differing heraldry, reference the astartes librarius division that wear blue and the red of the armoury's techmarines.

So far I am thinking of a battleworn matte black with white and grey details, pale blue glowy parts but a little dark red as spot colour for the regular infantry, metallics in bronze and dark metal. I'm going to do some colour-testing to get a nice combination before I try out a testmodel.

Liking the sound of it. Can't wait to see the results.

D

Love it great work like always !

Very good musings on the nature of skitarii colours, i find myself very much in agreement with you on the entire vision of the Skitarii. So much so, that i now need to rethink how im gonna do mine. So thanks for being an inspiration!