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So I decided at the start of the year to make a big effort to get my Ordos Hereticus broth painted. At the end of last year I finished my backlog of Grey Knights, then last week I finished my AdMech backlog leaving only my Sororitas and Imperial Guard to be painted.

Initially I didn't think I had many Sisters for some reason. I had a bunch I owned as an army from about 10 years ago and at the start of 8th I traded (and painted) an unused Hordes army for some more Sisters which basically doubled my collection. So there I was, all hyped up to begin painting my Sisters and thinking I'd get them done fairly quickly until I actually counted exactly how many metal monopose matrons I actually had to paint. Initially I thought I was generously estimating about 60 total, including Seraphim and Repentia. Turns out it's around 90 basic Sister by themselves. I bumped the numbers up to 100 with a squad of Seraphim because it's got a better ring to it than The 90 Sister Challenge.

Now I'm no stranger to slogging through a lot of models. I once painted 200 skaven clanrats in two weeks but 90 models at the level of detail that Sisters are at? Its a far cry from dipping clanrats in wood varnish. So to keep myself honest I'm going to post my progress here so that I kind of have something I'm answerable to even though I'm not really.

Initially I'm planning on getting the 100 Sister done and out of the way. I'm thinking of them the wall to break down to move onto other things. Long term I suppose I'll document painting the rest of my army, then Imperial Guard and then to stick with the Sanctuary 101 theme I'll move onto my Necrons possibly? We'll see. The aim here is speed, I'm not the greatest painter but I can paimt a lot to a mediocre standard quickly. I want to have at least my Sisters backlog painted by mid-June.

Luckily, I finished the first 20 Sisters already.
Day 1 and 2:


Yes, I know the flash is on and the picture is crap but as I said, we're talking middling painting skills but the speed of a slightly older cheetah who has a bit of a sore back so don't expect masterworks here. Also I'm painting 100 monopose models they can't all be blended to perfection. Another fun fact is that by the end of this 23 Sister will have to deal with no backpacks since around 45 are missing their backpacks but I can only find 22. The purple squad on the left-middle row is a squad I painted at the start of 8th when I was trying to do my own colour scheme but it turns out Order Of Our Martyred Lady is just too cool to ignore so they're getting a transfer (along with the Exorcist, Immolator and Rhino I painted in the same scheme). Also I read Faith and Fire and Hammer and Anvil back to back and they got me inspired.

Good luck there Sim-Life.

A fully painted Sisters army are something to behold because they are so rare.

I made a similar push to finish mine last year (all posted on Dakka in my PLOG). Unfortunately I have just added a few more models that need to be painted.

Cheers,

CB

30/100

The enthusiasm I once had is wearing out a bit. Its another 21 models until I have more painted than unpainted and whenever I do big sloggy things the halfway point feels like reaching the top of the hill and that downhill momentum help me keep going. But that last stretch before getting to the tipping point is harsh.

Great job so far!

All ready to fight my way through Day 4 and then this happened at 5am:



The necrons on the table fared worse than the Sister who just came away with a few dislodged backpacks. However the Halford varnish I use is obviously canned Emperor's protection and the recently painted Sisters had not a chip. Speaking of:


40/100
Looking at this picture makes me feel like I've barely made any progress at all for some reason. I'm getting lazier from when I started but missing less parts. Turns out missing backpacks are a blessing in disguise because its less painting. It'll cut the the number of fleur-de-lis I have to paint from 310 to...like 290ish.

Did the cat live? Keep it up, looks good so far.

 dracpanzer wrote:
Did the cat live? Keep it up, looks good so far.

He did. But we made a chicken for dinner and he didn't get any.

Great job so far!

I feel your pain about your *ahem* Bio-Titian encounter

Please join me in the Litany Of St. Jovi of Bon.

Oh, we've got to hold on, ready or not
We live for the fight when it's all that you've got
Oh, we're half way there
Oh, living on a prayer
Emperor take my hand, we'll make it I swear

50/100

It still doesn't feel like I've made much of a dent. I wonder if its because I'm painting black models black?

It's all downhill from here though. But in a good way. Rather than counting up to a hundred its more like I'm counting down now.

60/100

Going to see Avengers tomorrow and I'm worried it'll break my work flow. Flow is maybe the wrong word. Slog? Trawl?

I got today's 10 painted in the morning so maybe I'll be able to do the same tomorrow with Sisters 71-80

I want to cry. Partly because I'm almost done, partly because I still have 30 to go.

80/100

I wonder if I'll be able to paint other models after this or will I just see everything as a Sister now. If I try to paint a tyranid will I just automatically go to paint it with black paint then red? Also, the eagle-eyed among you will notice the Seraphim feet sticks have been replace with rocks.

Edit. I just realised I forgot to wash and highlight the skin on the helmetless Sisters. Luckily there was only two of them in the last group.

Edit 2: If anyone can point me to an appropriate print out for that Sister with the banner pole that would be just dandy.

A valiant effort! Love those rare occasions when you see a Sisters army assembled, keep going!

 Apollinaire wrote:
A valiant effort! Love those rare occasions when you see a Sisters army assembled, keep going!

Thanks. I don't think I've ever seen a painted Sisters army offline, which is a big reason for why I wanted to do it. Also it's been 10 years since I got them and if I don't do it now I probably never will.

In productivity news I couldn't find a banner so I had to make one myself. It's simple but I tried. Here it is if anyone wants it. I just pulled the banner image and template from GiS then threw it together in photoshop.



I don't know how it'll look when I print it but it should work okay. I might even put a few banner poles on my tanks if it works out. It's scaled to the Sister mini holding a banner pole though so I dunno if the scale will work right for tanks.


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90/100



And with that all my basic bolter bitches are finished, only special girls after this. I won't have to do something like this again until I have to paint my IG. My banner was slightly too large in the end but I was able to cut the bits that go around the pole down to fit it on. Just the Seraphim to go, I put them on rocks so thats an exciting new bit to paint.

100.

You know how when you get to the end of a computer game and you basically know you have the game beaten, so you lose the motivation to actually finish the last leg of the game and it just sits there unfinished? That's what painting the Seraphim was like. Maybe it was something to do with 6 of them being the same sculpt. Maybe I was burnt out, but after painting the armour and robes I just had no desire to keep going. But I did because I'm not going to paint 10 models a day for 9 days in a row and not finish the last 10 on the 10th day. I thought I'd be more excited to paint them but I hadn't realised how well I know the standard SoB model now and was kind of zoning out while painting them and could paint them in about half the time the Seraphim took.

But there we go. 100 Sisters Of Battle ready to fight some necrons. Time to bump the number up to 110 and get my Repentia painted I suppose.

Awesome!

Boom! Really impressive pace, plus the chicks look great all together

- Salvage

Well thats an utterly insane timeframe. Well done sir.

Major props to you! Damn, I wish I had your diligence when it comes to painting... Most of the time I can get a squad of 10 guard done in a week. Haha congrats on finishing your sisters!

Wow. True labor there, well done.

Congratz on your amazing achievement

You should paint one more sister so you can have 101 models for Sanctuary 101

Awesome! I love this sort of thing - brings me back to my days of painting gigantic hordes of ork boyz right before a tournament.

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

 MrFlutterPie wrote:
Congratz on your amazing achievement

You should paint one more sister so you can have 101 models for Sanctuary 101

Funnily enough I found a Sister in my bin. Presumably having fled there after the bio-titan incident. Tl

Anyway, I'm back again after getting suspended for being naughty. Was I sat on my bum, grumbling at the injustice of such things? No I wasn't my pious Emperor loving friends. After a bit of a (well earned in my opinion) break I got back to work and painted my.Immolators and Rhino



Helpfully, I have loads of Bretonnian transfer sheets sitting around with lots of lovely fleur d'lis on them to tart up my vehicles a bit.

Next up was my fleet of exorcists. The exorcist is my absolute favourite model in 40k because it sums up all the ridiculousness of the Eccliesarchy and 40k in general. I don't think any model captures the essence of the Imperium quite as well a tank that shoots missles at you from a pipe organ while it play hymns. So paint them I did.


If I'm being honest, after the second one I was sick of painting them. They're amazing models but so much effort. I can't imagine how wrecked my head would be if I actually put proper effort into them. I also dropped the second one while varnishing it and broke the front panel off and the organ into all its parts. Special shout out to Retributor Gold for cutting down on the work. I remember when I initially painted one of my exorcists 10 years ago when I first got them and trying to paint the pipes gold before even the foundation paints were released. Would hate to have repeated that nonsense.

Lastly, but not leastly, was my canonnesses, 2 Imagifiers and finishing off the Gemini which I'd started but never finished when I painted Celestine. If I paint several different models at once I tend to gravitate to the one I like the most and end up just painting that model, which was the case with them. My canonnesses were both missing their gun hands. I luckily had a power sword hand and book hand from somewhere. I also had the old cowboy looking Inquisitor so he donated his plasma pistol. The other canonness I wanted to give an Inferno pistol so she'd match herself from 10 years ago. I had a Necromunda weapon sprue and the little flamey bit from yhe other canonnesses backpack. I initially planned on keeping the long barrel of the shotgun so it would look more like the inferno pistol from the Codex: Witchhunters cover, but after mocking it up decided to cut the barrel off so that the flames were coming out of the grip (?) of the shotgun body. I also decided to paint their armor gold. Both to match the Gemini (who're resurrected canonnesses after all) and to help them stand out. The one with the power sword got it painted purple just for a change of pace as all the other power weapons in the army are blue except for Draigo's sword which is red since its a reforged Khorne weapon. The Imagifiers just got painted like my unit leaders because they're just holding a daft stick.



And with that, my Sisters Of Battle are/were complete.



I'm pretty happy with it. I started losing motivation when I was painting the exorcists but as I said earlier painting the same model several times in a row speeds the process up a lot so the last one was both the hardest and fastest to paint. Anyway, I'm not QUITE finished yet. The Sisters Of Battle are part of the Adeptus Ministorum army, so the army wouldn't be complete without some zealots running around under the supervision of some Inquisitors.



Almost all of these models are third party or kitbashed. The only GW models are Greyfax and the two assassins. You'll also notice the lone painted Crusader hiding at the back. He's just a test model for the Crusader paint scheme.

I wanted to keep the black and red theme going but not exactly the same as the sisters so I decided to use a darker shade of red. I wasn't sure if using those colours on his armor would make him look Chaos Warrior-y since that's what the main part of the model is and wasn't sure if painting the armor silver would look too plain. But I'm pretty happy with how it turned out so I'm be sticking with it.

When I finish painting each unit I'll go into more detail about parts used and such but that's the big post-suspension update.

Addendum: This wouldn't be a Sanctuary 101 blog without Necrons. Between painting my Immolators and Exorcists some new toys arrived.


Now I've not been hugely enthused about Necrons as an army for the last few editions. I just realised typing this that I started them around the same time as my Sisters funnily enough. Back then they were still silent, soul harvesting slaves to indifferent cosmic horrors and I liked that about them. 40k has a lot of stuff going on and I liked the quiet, Lovecraftian uncaring terror to the brash loudness of the rest of 40k. I could deal with Newcrons when they were initially got revamped because crypteks had loads of toys to fart about with and all the tesla weapons and such were shiney and new. Then the crypteks had their toys taken away and the shineyness of the new weapons wore off and they didn't really have much in common with what they were before anymore

One of my issues with the 8th edition codex is that there just isn't much variety to their lists once you take your troops and heavy hitters so I looked to Forgeworld to give me more options. I'm trying to get into the ridiculous tech side of them like guns that shoot singularities and ghostly mechanical centipedes and have fun enjoying the excessivness of their weapons since the eldritch inevitability of them has been put to the wayside. I know people don't rate Tomb Stalkers but I've wanted one for a long time because he's so ADORABLE. Mine is called Baxter and he wants to give you hugs. I won't be painting the Necrons until after the Imperial side is finished but they ARE there.

Addendum Secundus: I also painted a squad of Repentia but soon into painting them I realised how awful the sculpts were (by which I mean I found myself wondering what it was I was actually painting) and gave up trying to make them look good so they got the old Agrax bath and were quickly put aside on favorn of less awful things. Lets hope 2019 brings some better looking sculpts.

So today I started on the non-Sisters unit of my army. I chose to paint my Crusader unit first. Mainly because they were the simplest unit to paint.



When I went to make Ministorum units at the start of 8th I did so with the intention of making them as cheaply as possible so in the case of this unit I used Bretonnian and Grey Knight bits I already had sitting about. I just bought 10 Chaos Warriors from a friend and cut their heads off (but don't worry, they'll turn up again later). I gave them Bretonnian Men-at-arms heads and Grey Knight falchions where I could. I ran out of falchions hence why one guy has a two handed sword (I forget how I fit it to his hands, I suppose it just fit with minor green stuffing) and the unit leader has a larger sword than the others. His head is actually from a Grey Knight sprue as well. I also decided to give one guy a banner from a Bretonnian knight because I just felt like a band if crusaders would have one.

I probably should have put an Inquistiorial ][ on the banner but I can't be arsed freehanding one and I didn't have any inquistion transfers. Also, I originally planned to just have black shields but thought that looked to plain so I decided to give them Bretonnian heraldry and copy the way I'd done my power weapons onto the shields. I think it worked out okay.

Dunno what I'll be doing mext. I'm running low on Martian Ironcrust for the bases though.

Painted my Death Cult Assassins



Another simple conversion from plastic Witch Elves in that they don't really need anything from other kits unless you want to give them purity seals and accessories. Most of them have the Sisters Of Slaughter heads but with the sculpted details like eyes and decorations green stuffed over. The top knots and such are the whips from the Sister of Slaughter weapons. One has some whips from a Slaaneshi chariot attached to her waist. I like how they all curve well with the motion of the sculpts to make them look like they're spinning. I tried making bionic eyes but they ended up too big and a but comicy but I left them on because I'm lazy. The cables attached to some of them are scenic basing barbed wire as I don't have easy access to guitar strings. Also I had it and as I said, I tried to make these models as cheaply as possible (despite being made from Witch Elf models).

I also have a migraine so not a big talky post today.

I dig 'em! Solid DCA, bodysuits look really good despite being mostly paint and GS-obscured masks. Great movement in those sculpts, especially with added ponytails.

I tried to make these models as cheaply as possible (despite being made from Witch Elf models)

Ain't that the truth, the price of that kit has stopped me from messing with it several times now

- Salvage

And that's my acro-flagellants done.



Again they're made mostly from the parts that come in the Empire Flagellant box. I just cut the hands off and glued their flails directly to their wrists.

Remember when I mentioned the Chaos Warrior heads when I painted my Crusaders? The top halves of the Warriors heads became the flagellants brain helmets. I used my barbed wire again for cables and used the rods from Grey Knight Interceptor backpacks as stim-injectors.

If I'm honest I'm not massively fond of how they look (which is why I put less effort into painting them). Initially I wamted to use GW ghoul models but the one undead player I could have bought ghouls from moved away and I didn't need 16 if I'd bought them new so the Empire ones it was. They don't look rabid enough in my opinion but they'll do the job until GW releases new plastic ones in a million years.

I also had to colour match Martian Ironearth for their bases because I'm running low on it. I mixed Vallejo Bright Orange and Doombull Brown then added a bit of Mephiston Red until it was roughly the same. Just if you're interested.

As a side note, this means that all my infantry are painted. All that's left is 2 Penitent Engines, an Vindicare Assassin, Culex Assassin, Inquisitor Greyfax and a few Raging Heroes models that I might use as priests or something.


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 Boss Salvage wrote:

I tried to make these models as cheaply as possible (despite being made from Witch Elf models)

Ain't that the truth, the price of that kit has stopped me from messing with it several times now

- Salvage

As much as I balk at the price it's the second set I've bought to cut up. I used my first set to make fiends of slaanesh by gluing witch elves to goblin giant spiders.

Small update today. Inquisitor Greyfax and a Raging Heroes model that will be the first of two Priests.



I kept forgetting I even had Greyfax for ages but now that sje's painted it means the Triumvirate I got is painted. And in less than a year! Go me.

More single characters. I got the model on the right to be a canonness but I'll use her as another priest. The model on the left I'm not sure. I think she'd be a good Imagifier. What would be more inspiring to the Order Of Our Martyred Lady than a martyred lady?

Very close to finishing now and only two models left to paint now. I'm not sure how to display the whole army once it's all done, not to mention setting up the AdMech and Grey Knights next it. I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Some very characterful models - and impressive slogging on with the sisters!