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(Forgive me in advance if this is the wrong spot)
So I've seen a lot of peeps on Dakka do a sort of journal of the progress on their army, and I figured, "why don't I do one too!" So I'm gonna try to keep a log here of my journey to build up my Salamanders flameblade strikeforce and beyond! Hopefully this will be a useful resource for someone who's just getting into the hobby to see what it's like to go a step beyond just buying the box, and instead of just prming and painting, mad customizing your models too

What I hope to do is post pictures of the progress I'm making with the army, and hopefully catalog all the purchases I've made to get 'er done. I'll probably be editing these posts as I see fit, just to add clarity and various links and what not. Also if you have any suggestions you want to throw my way, please feel free to do so! I'm still a total noob when it comes to most stuff modelling and painting related.

First up is some bases I've made:






So I rolled out some greenstuff on top of corkwood using the Aztec rolling pin from greenstuffworld. I've used their pins before for my space wolves and I LOVE how they turn out.
Normally I just throw some greenstuff ontop of the base and roll it out, but I feel the corkwood adds some extra depth and you can stack them up to make them look like rocky terrain. So I either chopped those apart or left them whole and threw them onto the bases with other piles of corkwood. I slathered some vallejo rough grey pumice paste around for some extra measure. I think they look pretty boss so far, just waiting on it to stop raining to go out and prime these bad boys.

Next up is hopefully a pic of them painted, and maybe some work on my command company. Flamers and storm shields make me happy

I'm going to subscribe to this thread, if it blossoms into what I think it will, it shall be a Salamanders box of joy! the bases look really good and I thank you for the detail in what you used and how you created them! in one post you've given me much to google.

Those bases are looking top notch so far! Super keen to see them done. While I don't collect them I've always had a soft spot for Salamanders so I'm gunna be checking back at this thread regularly

I like where this is headed. i really like these rolling pins.

Wow! Gorgeous bases! Can't wait to see where this project goes!

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the support. I'll try to live up to your expectations but I'm kind of gak at painting so we'll see how everything turns out lol.

Today's goal was to prime the bases before the rain started, which I succeeded in. Unfortunately, the Krylon Primer I used ended up spraying a watery ink mixture that filled in details, instead of you know... priming. This is weird because the Krylon ultra flat grey works AMAZING. So the plan now is to swing by Home depot and grab another brand of primer... I hear rustoleum is pretty decent so I'll give that a shot.
Some of you may be asking why I don't just use g-dubbs chaos black spray, and the answer is simply: I'm cheap.
GW chaos black is legit twice the price of any primer you can get at a hardware store, and only like 1/3rd of the content. I ain't about that life
So I'll hopefully grab some primer on the way back from work tomorrow, as well as some clamps I need for drop pods... but well get to that later.

In the meanwhile I stripped the paint of these suckas I got off ebay:


I probably could have documented the process, but I figured there were enough tutorials around dakka about stripping already. If people want me to though, I could probabaly strip one of the marines I use to test different paint jobs on, whenever I cross that bridge.
Now I just have to figure out how to Dragon these guys up more so than painting fire every where... I'm debating whether I should try making greenstuff scales.

Sooo next up is hopefully getting them bases primed and painted, and either starting work on my command squad.

I'm with you all the way on being cheap. A local store near me does cans of spray paint for £1. Never looked back got a wonderful selection now thats taking up drawer space in my living room. Gonna keep an eye on this as i cant wait for 8th edition and looking for some inspiration to drag out the sons of vulkan. Got a contemptor dread to do this month for the painting competition so thats a start.

Good luck.

Yup, you gotta save where you can brotha. And a contemptor eh? Gonna have to keep my eye on your posts

So I swung by HomeDepot and grabbed some primer:



and clamps:


Both were a steal at around $8 and $9.99 respectively. I have a feeling the clamps are kind of shoddy, but as long as they hold my drop pod doors tight, thats all that matters
Luckily enough the weather has been cooperating these days, so I've primed the bases and even have them somewhat painted! I'll start off by saying this primer works a loooot better than the Krylon (black at least, since the grey is amazing). It went on nice, and didn't obscure any details. As for the bases I played around a little bit, and found a formula for the ruin slab and pumice i think i like. Just need to figure out the method to paint lava nicely, and ill slap a pic of these suckas when I'm done.

I was also hoping to get some opinions from anyone who happens to be reading this. So I'm trying to kitbash as much as possible, and cant decide on what legs I want for my scouts. I have t narrowed down to one of these three:
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Regiments/Infantry-Legs/fatigue-legs-static
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Regiments/Infantry-Legs/Grenadier-Legs-Advancing
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Regiments/Infantry-Legs/Marine-Legs-Advancing
I'm personally partial to the grenadier myself, but I kind of get the feeling they'd look less like scouts and more like bigger stormtroopers at that point. What do you guys think?

Horrable Freight sells those spring clamps for super cheap and they are even more shoddy then those from the home depot.

but damn they are one of the most useful tools iv ever had.

imho anvils stuff for humans are way more sci fi than sci gothic fantasy. but personally i like the marine legs.

Yeahh that' actually what I was worried about desu. I feel like the grenadier legs look very scifi, and make the scouts feel more like storm troopers. BUUT the sculpt is sexy. I might grab the fatigues legs because they dont look as scifi, but like I said.. the sculpt on the other option is really hard to pass up. I'll probably have to put the scouts on hold for now though, since me being the genius that I am, grabbed a box of sniper scouts by accident and opened the package without realizing what I had bought. I mean I entirely plan on running scouts as snipers, but the models in the kit are way to static for my tastes. Oh well.

So here's where the bases are at.

So I primed the entire base with the Rustoleum, than after drying the over painted the ruin sections with GW Dawnstone(thin coat).
Afterwards, the put a HEALTHY wash of GW Nuln Oil all over. I than drybrushed heavily with a 1:1 mixture of Vallejo Model Air: US grey and Vallejo Model Colour: German Grey. Finally I did a light drybrush of GW Adminstratum.

For the pumice, I started by trying my best to fill in the cracks the primer missed with GW Abaddon black. I did a bit of experimenting after that with two different colour combinations. I drybrushed the pumice with dawnstone again, than a light drybrush of Adminstratum. The only diff between the two experiments was, I did a lighter drybrush of VGC: Dark Fleshtone. I wanted to go for a dark ash black look, but I think I'm starting to dig the ones with the brown highlight, especially after throwing the P3 SkorneRed on. Feels like it really makes them both pop.
I wanted to go for a cooled-lava affect hence the red. I'm wondering if I should add some kind of orange/yellow to the mix but don't want to overkill it.
The place without the pumice paste I plan to paint as pools of actual magma, but I'm gonna head to my buddy Jerry's house to get his advice since hes a boss painter. He'll probably be painting one of my units at some point since he really dig's painting things he hasn't before.
Any advice on what kind of paints/techniques I should use for the magma would be highly appreciated!

Aside from the minial painting I've done, I also had a chance to assemble these bad boys:


They're Legion Pyroclasts I got super cheap. I plan to use them as a "jeezus why is everything burning!?!?" Command squad, kitting them all out with flamers, nocturnes fury, and stormshields. Debating If I want to throw in a pf and power sword into the mix.
I also kitted one out as an apothecary:


I bought the Legionary Apothecary conversion set from Kromlech, and I'm thinking it looks pretty good. Well maybe it looks a bit funny on the pyroclast, but hey! at least it's unique
I really dig the stuff from Kromlech, and highly reccomend them if any of y'all are in need of bits for conversion. They have a ton of great stuff, with excellent casts and quick delivery.

So that's all the progress I've made so far. I'm waiting on some paints to come in so I can prime these bad boys, specifically some primer from Army Painter. I want to glue these suckas to their bases since I have a game today at Jerry's... but I fully plan on airbrushing them.... so I'll have to week several weeks before I get my airbrush kit setup.

Up next on the menu, the forge father himself:

So it's been a bit of a hiatus since I've posted. For the folks who said they were following, I do apologize. Starving myself during ramadan, and the new job left me little energy to wargame. But I'm back now, and I have lot's of stuff to show!

So the bases are done:

I'm quite happy with them if I do say so myself. For the lava I ended up doing a sort of blending, start with khorne red(gw), blended skorne red(p3), blended into ember orange(p3), into moon yellow(vgc), finally into white... of some sort. It was a lot easier than I thought, but took a bit of practice to get down. Next time I'm gonna see what kind of effect I can get from airbrushing.Oh btw I bought an airbrush

BEST PURCHASE EVER! I can not say enough, how much I wish I bought one earlier. Still experimenting with fine detail work, but one I do im gonna try to hash out some sexy power weapons and plasma weapons.

I've started putting together most of the units now too. I went on kromlech, spellcrow, and maxmini and pretty much bought every salamandery bit I could find. Not even exaggerating, I even had to get some doubles from spellcrow. Highly recommend all of these sites if you want your chapters to look sexy af.


That's maybe a quarter of all the bits I have. I'm saving some helmets and cloaks for veterans/termies but even without I have enough to make sure there's something dragon or fire related on each marine.

I already did some basic layering on a unit of marines.

I primed them all using the krylon grey ultra flat. Preshaded the bottom with gnarls green(p3), than did a layer of iosan green(p3), than goblin green(army painter) with a tiny bit of iosan mixed in. I'm gonna finish up with some mecrotite green(p3) mixed with the goblin, and finally just the necrotite for the over head highlite. Haven't decided how I want to wash it down yet though...