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Summary:

Over the years, I've collected a fair amount of bare plastic (and some metal) models that I work on for a while but never seem to follow through on. My girlfriend jokingly sent me a meme saying "Transaction Denied - you still have unpainted miniatures to paint." She likes to tease me about all the models I've sunk money into but never finished a project. Well, I just hit the big 5-0, and I've decided it's time for me to work on remedying that.

To start with, I've signed up for a Paint-a-Palooza event at a local hobby store - 3 days of painting workshops, lessons, support and camaraderie. I know that there isn't likely anyone local reading this, but here's a link to anyone curious: https://tabletop.events/conventions/paint-a-palooza-spring-2020b . I also setup a new hobby room for myself with (hopefully) decent room to expand and reorganize as I go along. And to help me feel motivated, I'm starting the blog here to keep track of my progress and hopefully get some input, advice and suggestion from fellow hobbyists.



The Project:

I've decided to start with slowly building up a Space Marine Legion over time. The problem for me is.... which Legion to choose?? Here are the Legions I'm considering along with the pro's and cons for each:

. Dark Angels. Like the way the models look. But there's no Primarch model, and other than looking cool the chapter really doesn't do anything for me.
. Imperial Fists. Cool models, fun characters, lots of FW options, and I like the Primarch model. But ugh.... painting a full legion of YELLOW???
. Blood Angels. More cool models and plenty of choices. Don't care for the Primarch as much, but not horrible. Given my other projects that would be a lot of Red to paint (think Blood Ravens)
. Ultramarines. Ubiquitous - they even steal troops from traitors (think Tyrant Siege Termies). The quintessential good smurfs. Er.... good guys.
. Thousand Sons. More cool models. Again, the primarch not as much for me. Would tie in neatly with the Blood Ravens project I hope to take on someday. That's a lot of Red...
. Word Bearers. Gal Vorbak. Blade Slaves. The earliest summoners of Daemons. The marine who started the whole Heresy - and I don't mean Lorgar. Even MORE red tho...
. Alpha Legion. They're misunderstood. Really. they only joined Horus to save humanity. Ask the Cabal. I like the colors. Some fun models. Not so sure about the helmet crests tho...

If anyone has thoughts they'd like to share on how to pick one, I'd be happy to give them a read!


The starting point:

Anyway!! To get me started, I have the Betrayal at Calth game box. This gives me a solid core with the following:

1x Legion Captain in Cataphractii terminator armor
1x Legion Chaplain (I believe he'll end up as a Praetor)
5x Legion Cataphractii Terminators (I'll be magnetizing these to give me plenty of weapon options)
1x Contemptor Dreadnought (may or may not magnetize this one - I like the weapon load out, plus I plan on getting at least 2 more dreads over time)
30x Tactical Marines with various weapon options.

My next purchases will be the Age of Darkness: Legions and Age of Darkness: Army Lists books. Notice the rule book isn't there? I really don't play that much - I enjoy the modelling. So I'm going for what I like the look of or the fluff of more than what's playable or has the best gaming rules.

After that, at least one Legion-specific Contemptor Dreadnought and a Leviathan. I haven't really had any experience working with Forgeworld resin, so my hope is that these will be good starting kits for me to learn the ropes on. After that... Tanks, troops, more tanks, more troops, a few characters... who knows.


Going Forward:

The Paint-a-Palooza is in about 10 days, so I'll be spending the next week and a half preparing. Finding models to take to paint, organizing the paints I own into an easily-transportable container, making sure I have all of the necessary hobby tools in my battlefoam bag, and so on. I'll also dust off the airbrush (that I've only ever used once) and get some models primed to take with me. Hopefully I'll be able to remember to take some progress pictures to post for feedback (oh yeah - I'll also need to figure out how to post pictures on Dakka dakka!!)

Wish me luck!

It's never too late to climb that mountain. Good luck!

Thanks. Here's hoping I actually follow through with it this time.

Still haven't decided which legion, so at this point I think I may use the painting clinic as a chance to paint up once or two basic MkIV marines for each legion and get a feel for what they're like to paint. Was going back and reading some of the rules for some of the special units. While I don't see myself playing, the special rules give an idea of the fluff and the feel for the units, and in turn the chapter. Zardu Layak, the Mhara Gal Tainted Dreadnought, and the Gal Vorbak look fun. And that tainted dread just sounds nasty. At the moment I'm leaning towards Word Bearers, but I'm still looking/reading/researching.

Baby steps.

I ended up going back and magnetizing the arms on the plastic Contemptor dread from the Battle at Calth. It worked out a lot better than I was worried it would. The arms won't be compatible with Forgeworld Contemptors due to different magnetizing points, but it still gives me the option to swap the weapons out.

Was hoping to do the same thing with the Cataphractii terminators. Had most of the weapons magnetized to be able to swap them out... until I realized that there's no good way to magnetize the shoulder pads with the arms. Nuts. Ah well. Since I don't really plan on playing, I decided to just go with combi-bolters and power fists and leave it at that. Speaking of which, those combi-bolter barrels are a pain to drill out. They're smaller than 40k bolter barrels, so I had to get a new drill bit.

Still working on narrowing down which legion, but leaning more towards Word Bearers - if nothing else, it means buying fewer books to have the rules I need.

So, I’ve got my first legion models underway:



As I mentioned before, I managed to magnetize the arms on both the Contemptor and the terminators - but without extra shoulder pads I guess it was pointless on the termies.

Think I’ve decided to go with the Word Bearers. Have my first squad of 10 tacticals primes black, and have base coats on 4 of them. I’ll try to get pictures tomorrow.

The Paint-a-Palooza started today. Learned a few things about using a wet palette (never used one before), and paint consistency. I’ve also been reminded that my brush control sucks. Still, Hopefully I’ll get better with practice. Tomorrow will be more painting with a Paint Doctor clinic for an hour - take a mini and get hints, suggestions, and ask questions of the people that teach painting locally. At the moment I think my goal is to work on understanding and getting better at edge highlighting. I’ll try to get pics of that too - gotta show progress, right?

So, tried edge highlighting for the first time today. I've done washes, and drybrushing, but never tried edge highlighting.

Step 1: Black primer, then a basecoat of Mephiston Red.


Step 2: Nuln Oil wash in the recesses:


Step 3: Evil Sunz Scarlet for the first layer of highlighting:


Step 4: Fir Dragon Bright for the 2nd highlight:



My own thoughts on looking at it in person is that it turned out fairly well for my first attempt. I probably need to add a bit more of the 2nd highlight to the helmet to make it a focus point - probably under the eye lenses.

Anyway, next steps will be the non-red areas - chest straps, the molecular bonded nubbins on the leg, the gun holster (and gun), the sword across his back, and the backpack. In retrospect, I'm thinking a lot of the areas would have been easier to paint if I'd left the arms and backpack off and painted them separately. Live and learn.

If anyone has any thoughts, comments, critiques, or constructive criticism, please feel free to chime in - I'm wanting to learn more and I know there are a lot of people on Dakka who could definitely learn me a thing or two.

Great first edge highlighting. Interestingly, it always looks better in person / actual size - the pics looked better on my mobile than on my desktop. Keep it up!