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Hi all,

I haven't posted in ages in the P&M blogs but I have been lurking away and over the course of the last year or so, I've been picking up the odd issue of the 40k magazine conquest if I happen across them as well as picking up Dark Imperium and Indomitus.

Back when Indomitus was released I had planned on doing a painting log but unfortunately with family issues and covid, my chances to sit down and blog away were very limited. Why am I starting a blog now? Well I have a pile of unpainted plastic that needs getting done and I am hoping this might give me the impetus to get something done for the shelf while I wait for games to be a more regular thing again. It's also a pretty distinct change from my previous Excavating eBay blog so anything marine related will go in here unless there is some kind of crossover episode in the making I am unaware of!

I chose Excoriators space marines as they're a relatively underexplored Second Founding chapter of space marines and are successors of Imperial Fists, a legion I'm fond of having collected Black Templars in the past. I read Legion of the Damned over the summer and after toing and froing over painting them or Star Dragons (from Architect of Fate), I decided that white armour would be an excellent challenge and they'd be different enough from White Scars based on their lore and battle tactics. Excoriators are attrition fighters, with an emphasis on not giving ground and inflicting maximum casualties while minimising their own. They're not a flashy chapter, their armour is often superficially left battle damaged and pitted, with marines adorning this damage with scripture of when and where it was received. These guys are to the point, get the job done marines which is something I found fairly realistic in an over the top setting. They like to embody Dorn's tendency for self-harm, and they tend to adopt methods of ritual scarring and purification through pain. While that might be hard to get across in a model, there's always the potential down the line should I want an unarmoured space marine.

My goal for this blog, other than to finish painting minis, is to build a company of Space Marines which follow the codex astartes taking into account what the introduction of Primaris marines have done for the lore and those being effectively the wat forward when building a marine army these days. I'll list my painting goals below, but the standard "active" company structure is as follows:

1 Company Captain or "Corpus Captain" as the Excoriators name them
2 Lieutenants (demi-company commanders)
Command Squad (built from the Reclusiam, Apothecarion and Librarius as well as the Company ancient and Champion)
6 Battleline Squads (within each is a Squad Whip and Second Whip)
2 Close Support Squads
2 Fire Support Squads
Dreadnoughts

I've decided to follow this as I build the 5th company, which in Legion of the Damned were destroyed to a man defending a world against the a Khorne Blood Crusade, thus giving me a blank slate to build a primaris company. My only caveat with this is that as I build my marines, one of the early Jes Goodwin voxcast episodes mentioned that as a marine passes the rubicon primaris, they may end up taking weapons or pieces of armour that they cherish and this allows me a bit of creative licence to do some head-swaps, weapon swaps or anything that takes my fancy in order to make a marine unique and just provide some visual interest across the troops and not just reserve it for the HQs.

My other goal with this army is to paint it with relative speed compared to how long I take with my Eldar and other minis. I want to set a standard across the board of what I'd be happy with fielding on the tabletop and then have the ability to add extra detail to HQs and other bigger models. The tools to help speed this up will be primarily the airbrush, but before I start painting, I want to establish a basing scheme. I've chosen a starship or space hulk theme to my bases, which in some cases may vary from a flight deck to a Chaos corrupted ship or Tyranid infested ship. I would love to be able to tell a story through my basing, and hopefully I can pull it off! The armour is all, white, which is a hard colour to paint by brush so I want to be able to have smooth gradients and good contrast with the white that I paint. I've watched plenty of tutuorials, and while it's a long enough process to achieve the white I want, it's soooo much faster than crying with a brush. After the airbrush step, I want the details I paint to have a fairly similar palette of colours across the board, which I can write down and replicate if I decide to take a break from my minis and come back later. This means trim, metallics, leathers will all be the same and basing will share a uniformity to them. A limited palette also means I don't have to run around looking for the right paint and I can mix on the fly to make additional tones that might add some variation. I also think that the old-school grey knight force swords are the business, so I want to replicate that on my own power weapons when I can! To add definition, I've been practising with oil paints and they're honestly a huge time saver for me, even with clean up included simply due to the capillary action working so well when I get the wash mix right. I don't know how I haven't used the technique before, but it's certainly hard to go back!

Without further ado, I'll show off some of the test model for the chapter and WIPs I've been tinkering with and eventually as I update the blog, the above Company list will get filled out!

Corpus Captain Torix Luxadian - Completed, serves as the sample model for the army.



Lieutenant "Chief Whip" #1 - WIP



Reclusiam - consisting of a Chaplain and Judiciar for now, the Judiciar is currently what I'm under the kosh for now in order to get it done for November's painting challenge! (Judiciar finished 30/11/20)







Close Support squads - WIP on some assault intercessors, but almost there, I'm just working on freehand and weathering and they should be good to go soon (Completed 05/12/20). I am also working on my outriders, but so far I am unsure as to whether they should be a reserve company as I plan on fielding bolter Inceptors over them.

Excoriators 5th Company Close Support Squad Raman, last seen in boarding action of ++REDACTED++ space hulk, Cicatrix Maledictum, M42

"This is where our fallen Stigmartyr is brothers, the stench of Alpha Legionnaires, not even my filters can clear that..." Veteran Squad Whip Toros Raman















"The Honoured First" or First Company Vets - These guys have been on the back burner for a bit, but progress is being made on the ancient, which will likely be the Chapter Ancient over the Company Ancient






In addition to all of this, I have a bunch of hellblasters, regular intercessors, a repulsor, some inceptors and eradicators to make my way through, but I have told myself I won't be starting those until these guys that are on the bench right now are completed.

Hope you've enjoyed the read, it's a bit brief for now, but if you enjoy space marines, I hope this thread might be worth a follow!

Cheers and stay safe,

TH

Thanks youwashock, keen to get back into the hobby side of things on Dakka again, been missing the interaction!

I finished up the Judiciar last night to get him done for the painting challenge. Fairly pleased overall with how he turned out, although not sure how I feel about the green sand timer, it might be worth changing to something else. C&C much appreciated! (More pics in the gallery with different angles)

youwashock wrote:Fabulous texture on that coat. I like the green sand. Makes it more than a mundane hourglass.

Cheers! The coat is what I spent the most time on so pleased you like it.

gobert wrote:Welcome back TH, these guys look great. The old marine helmets work really well, especially the biker dude

Thanks for the welcome gobert, adding the older helmets gives me some variety that helps the Primaris line I think.

Ragsta wrote:That’s a well executed white, and the Justicar looks awesome. I love Mk 3 helms.

Thanks! MkII and III are definitely favourites of mine so I wanted to add at least a few in.

Captain Brown wrote:Very nice work Tyranid Horde.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks Cap!

Hi folks, another update with some completed models this evening. I didn't have a lot more to add since I'd stopped painting them a few months back, but some finer details were added to the assault intercessors to bring them up to a decent standard. I added some script to heavier battle damage to link the minis to their lore counterparts and added some rust and Verdigris to add some notes of interest. I'll show off two group photos of the marines and spoiler individual shots if anyone fancies perusing them up close. C&C appreciated, hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Excoriators 5th Company Close Support Squad Raman, last seen in boarding action of ++REDACTED++ space hulk, Cicatrix Maledictum, M42

"This is where our fallen Stigmartyr is brothers, the stench of Alpha Legionnaires, not even my filters can clear that..." Veteran Squad Whip Toros Raman

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Gorgeous white! Great weathering.

Thanks! Trying to get a good balance between the white and the gritty nature.

gobert wrote:A good looking bunch, the guys with the hazard stripes on their chainswords win it for me.

Cheers, I was tempted to add a few more hazard stripes here and there, but I wanted them off the table! Might be worth going back to do it though.

Fifty wrote:Very nice leather on that Judiciar.

Thanks Fifty, glad to see folks like it.

Small update on my end, I've been working on my Chaplain, mainly getting some basecoats down but also working on his face as he's a bit of a centrepiece model, so working on the skin tones are important. It's been a while since painting flesh other than the intercessor from this weekend, but the detail is stepped up quite a bit. I think his face is alright for now, but it likely needs something? Lips and brows need adding in and then maybe it'll look better. I've also blocked in some of the details on my Eradicators. Most of the Indomitus box I have was airbrushed in one sitting, so I only really have other colours and details to paint. That being said though, it's a nerve-wracking experience trying not to ruin the white I've put down as there's no going back!






Thanks for reading/looking!

Thank you Youwashock and Nev, less work done this week on my marines as I'm working on my painting challenge entry but this weekend I'll be keen to get a bit more done.

Thanks Darkkt, greatly appreciated!

Slow on the progress since my last post, I've mainly been working on the Porsche build for the painting challenge, and while I was waiting for it to dry and rather than waste the paint in my airbrush, I knocked out a Space Marine I'd picked up a while ago from the getting started magazine GW do with a necron. Not the best value for £10, but they're fine practise pieces and unique sculpts, which was my reasoning for buying it. He was meant to be an Excoriator, but he is now a Blood Drinker!

I wanted to see how fast I could knock out a tabletop level marine and I added some freehand into the mix for additional interest as I don't have the transfers. Under 2 hours and fairly happy of the change of pace. Let me know what you think!

Hey all!

Another update from me, and probably the last before the new year as I'm headed home to Ireland tomorrow for the Christmas holidays. My university worked on two stage covid tests so I've been cleared to go home and it means self isolation isn't as big of an issue as I go from Scotland to Ireland. I do plan on bringing a few minis home, as I'll have a good bit of free time to chill and paint away. The trip home lets me collect some minis I have at home from my pile of shame too, for 2021's foray into painting.

This week since painting the Blood Drinker, I've been doing a bit of project hopping, working on the Porsche, a tiny X-Wing, and my Excoriators. I even got to jump into a call with Mad Doc Grotsnik and a couple of others for a painting session last night! I've never really had the chance to paint with anyone else and the past year has mostly been online interactions, so the hobby call was a good one, and I feel like I needed it too. I placed an order with element games as they finally got in stock of the Vallejo metal color line of paints that I've been after for absolutely ages. I picked up duraluminium and white aluminium as they're good tones and different enough to be used side by side or as a highlight colour. I was tempted by their gold, but retributor armour I find is a good enough shade of gold anyway and I have 3 or 4 pots of the stuff from conquest and mortal realms! I'm excited to try them out.

Back to the Excoriators, I've been working on Eradicators primarily as I want to get some of the units out of the way so I can reward myself with character models on the side for putting up with any monotonous bits of the painting process. I am a good bit away from finishing off the Eradicators, having spent a while edge highlighting the three of them to a pretty reasonable standard and adding some light weathering, so if you see any unsightly white lines or splotches of paint, they'll get filled in with deeper damage down the line, and the finer white lines serve as extra texture on the armour panels. These guys are going to be one of two fire support squads for 5th company, hence the black trim and company roundel on the kneepad. I only managed to take one decent photo, but the other two marines are exactly the same:



I also dug out my Bladeguard Veterans, who have been hidden for a while. I dug them out to try out airbrushing power swords again, something I'd tried with decent results for my howling banshees earlier this year. I think it doesn't need to be said, but the swords I've attempted this week didn't go as well, with the swords generally looking a bit naff, even though they've not received their edge highlights yet to break up each face of the sword. I'll go over them again and start from scratch I think. I couldn't remember from last time whether I'd used white ink or white paint to paint up the Banshees' swords, or the pressure was too high, but I got some pooling of paint on the blade which gave some poor results. Anyone have tips to help me out with that by any chance?





Finally, I painted up the trim on the Vets and have decided to use them as First Company or "The Honoured First" for the purposes of the chapter fluff. I don't have a spot where they could reasonably fit into the 5th company as a unit, so I feel that does the job. First company colours are normally white but sometimes silver, so I've gone for silver as I think there'd be just a bit too much white. I do feel that the silver gets lost in the white, so it may be chapter accurate, but it's missing some contrast that will hopefully appear when I get onto painting some heraldry and what not on the mini shields and pauldrons.






Thanks for taking a look, and if I don't post here before the New Year, have a good Christmas and New Year!

Fifty wrote:The white on those Bladeguard is fantastic.

Cheers Fifty, much appreciated!

gobert wrote:Nice job TH! I think the silver was the right choice as the white would’ve been too much. The power sword looks pretty decent to me, I didn’t really notice the pooling you mentioned. Have a good trip back home and Happy Christmas

Thanks gobert! The pooling I think is more noticeable in real life, and that's if you're looking closely. I'm hoping once there's some edge highlighting it won't be seen at all.

Maharg wrote:That's a great white you've done on those marines and really well aged too. Good stuff, looking forward to seeing more

Thanks Maharg! More to come this year for sure.

Hey all,

I'm back again after a restful Christmas and New Year, and I spent some time catching up on different folk's blogs over the holiday period. It's tough reading and commenting on Dakka through a mobile phone, so I'm glad to get back to my PC to properly look at everything. Unfortunately, being home and away from the majority of my hobby supplies meant that painting anything Space Marine related was nigh on impossible, but I did sit down and dig out my stash of Dark Imperium marines to begin work on their bases.

I have this idea that each squad will have progressively warped or damaged bases to make it appear like they're delving deeper into a Daemon ship or space hulk, although achieving that may be easier said than done. I decided as well to elevate some of the character models for my army akin to what I did for the Indomitus Captain. Basically it'll make them more noticeable and definitely doesn't help me in terms of modelling for advantage but I do think the larger bases deserve to have some interest going on and makes the world feel more lived in.

As I've seen others state some hobby goals, I decided to make a couple of my own for this specific project. Excoriators have quickly become my favourite project to work on having never really done much in the way of marines before and they'll always be a force I want to add to, but at the same time, I think an achievable goal for me would be to finish off the marines I currently have in my pile of shame and call the army done. Based on how marines play these days, I don't want to field them as a tabletop army, I get enough abuse with Eldar being OP (although not right now) and the basing won't lend themselves to a competitive environment. I do have a good few bodies to paint already, but no marine force is complete without a tank or two, so adding an Impulsor or other vehicle might be a cool thing to add to this year's hobby goals.

I'll leave you with some photos of what I've done, and I'd like to say thanks to you guys for welcoming me back after my hiatus from blogging! Also, Happy New Year!






-TH

Viterbi wrote:Just read through from the start and that is an amazing force you're getting done. Love the color scheme, the white with its weathering is marvelous. Excited to see more!

Thanks Viterbi, there's more coming soon as I'm rounding down on some of the other projects on my table right now!

gobert wrote:I hadn’t spotted the claw on the base the first time I looked, cool addition! The new bases all look great, is it zip ties that your using on the ridged bits?

Thanks gobert, wasn't sure on the claw, and still not, I need to think of something clever to make it seem like there's something happening out of scene. They are indeed zip ties, I have a bunch of various sizes and seem to fit fairly well into a spaceship as a power conduit or something.

tzurk wrote:Really beautiful marines in here mate! Love the scuff and grime of both the paintjobs (I dunno what it is but multiple shades of brown on the same mini always make me happ!y) and the bases are just great and make the minis on top of them pop.

It's a while back now but the flesh work on the chaplain's face is also very nice - I reckon it would (does, by now? ) look great after those final highlights. Looking forward to more in 2021!

Thanks for stopping by Tzurk and thanks very much for the kind compliments. The weathering aspect of the paint job is quickly becoming my favourite and they look weird when the aren't weathered now. Still need to add those final highlights to my Chaplain, I've largely been avoiding him as I'm not sure what direction to take his skin tone as it's a bit red right now.

Yorkright wrote: That white is a thing of beauty TH and the weathering is top notch. I want to say I could help you with the power swords but mine don't turn out as well as yours. Looking forward to more!

Cheers Yorkright! I wouldn't say mine turn out better, we just have different methods for power swords, which I'll hopefully have an update on soon.

Another small update from me. The marines took a back seat this week for some scale modelling among other things, but I dug out the Chaplain I'd been avoiding for a while and did some pin washing on his armour and gold trim as well as bring the lustre of the gold back a little bit with some selective highlights. I haven't worked on the face at all since so that'll have to be sorted out at some stage soon but I did some work on his back pack and I'm pretty pleased with the result of that. I may have to add a brighter highlight to the black armour as under the light it's not very apparent. Luckily the backpack is removable too, as I'd never get past all that parchment. Unfortunately, I seem to have broken one of the halo's spikes slightly based on the photos which I didn't see before. Can't say I am surprised, I feel GW's approach to gaming figures has changed and they care more for spindly bits and dynamism over sturdier sculpts. Also wondering what colour the tubing on joints should be? Black doesn't make a lot of sense so I may go for grey to break it up a touch.




Thanks for reading!

-TH

Theophony wrote:Chappy is looking really nice. Needs a little dirt on the shiny silvers, but otherwise great all around.

Cheers! A much appreciated comment!

Viterbi wrote:Chaplain is already looking great and I too was happy to be able to remove the backpack while painting, otherwise it would have been impossible
Grey should work well for the joints.

Thanks! I actually think I've glued a lot of the backpacks on my Primaris marines and didn't think about how difficult getting around the back of them would be. Only the chappy and ancient didn't get that treatment. I think I'll be going for a dark grey with some lighter highlights to break it up a bit on the tubing, don't want it to be too stark.

gobert wrote:Nice progress on chappy, his gold is looking lovely and shiny. I see what you mean on the red tone to his face, you could embrace it and make him quite flush faced from all of the shouting? I like Viterbi’s idea of the grey for the tubing, a mid grey should work well

Thanks gobert, might just run with the reddish skin tones. Skin is always a bit of a weird one, I never think a lot about it but I conveniently gave my usual flesh tones to my dad as he's started scale modelling again.

Nevelon wrote:You could go for a really dark blue/grey, something like Deadly Nightshade.

Chaplain is looking great. Always love to see them getting paint; they just encapsulate the spirit of 40k so well. Even if their rules are often trash over the years.

Thank you Nev, I love chaplains, generally all of them are great but this one is one of the best recent ones imo, coming closely behind the classic Terminator Chappy.

Hey folks, back with another update for you all and made it to page 2! Woo!

These guys had a week off the paint bench as I went flitting to the assortment of other projects and came back to these this week. With the time spent on the marines this week, I've been going in on finishing some of the detail work I have been avoiding with the marines, such as edge highlighting the bladeguards' armour and their metallic parts to liven them up a bit after the oil wash. I've also painted the eyes of the eradicators and bladeguard and edge highlight the power swords too. I did a quick sketch on the Bladeguard robes to give an idea for highlight placement, I find blocking in different tones helpful and it gives me an idea of how extreme I should go with the highlighting.

Edge highlighting is usually a run of the mill, somewhat tedious process which results in sloppiness but I can chalk any thicker than usual lines as wear and tear by adding chipping to break up any neat edges. I tried out mixing some white ink into skull white (white scar, excuse me) to see if the flow off the brush would be easier and it has made it a lot better for getting opaque edges where I'm not fighting the brush. It wasn't easy getting the consistency right though, but that will come with practise I hope.

I would say the Eradicators are getting pretty close to done, a few of the pouches need the odd scratch and highlight and they need to get decals and weathering, but overall, maybe they'll be done in a painting session or two.





The Bladeguard got a bit extra done to them as I said, so they're not a million miles off either, but the cloth is the most time intensive part of these minis so far based on the Captain and Judiciar. I'm happy now with the power swords, not perfect, but on a table or even for a nice photo I think they'll be alright. The edge highlight helps a lot with framing them.





Swords!





I gave the Chaplain an added bit of detail, giving his black armour a first pass of highlights and it reminds me why I don't paint Chaos Space Marines with all that trim! I also washed the silver metals and had another think about the skin tones for the face. Maybe that'll be tackled by the next update? Still a good bit to go on this guy which I didn't think about last update, more robes, more parchment... phew.



Finally, I hopped over to my Bladeguard Ancient in an effort to get my minis near to each other in the level of completeness. I think the ancient is a gorgeous model and seeing all the conversion on it is tempting me to get a second for kitbashing. He'll be receiving silver trim and maybe a silver helmet in the coming days as he is one of the Honoured First and I have the Dark Imperium Ancient as my 5th company banner bearer.



So that's it from me, another minor update and it feels like these guys could be done soon but they also could take way longer. Anyone else feel that way about projects? I'm just waiting for that feel good paint the base rim black feeling with a couple of these.

Cheers and thanks for reading,

-TH

Thanks Cap for your input, I actually took your advice and put down my marines for a little bit to work on some other projects, which seems to have worked!

Hey all, back with another update after taking a small break from space marines, but this weekend past I decided to pick them up as I fancied finishing some models this week. It being Valentine's Day/Weekend, I managed to steal a few hours here and there for some painting and I figured I'd get to work on the freehand I have yet to complete for the Eradicators, Bladeguard, Chaplain, Ancient and Lieutenant. I'm not a fan of freehand as I find it a little bit boring and mostly daunting scribbling all over white as mistakes are hard to fix but doing them in a batch means that the freehand is relatively consistent with other models and lets me forget about freehand for another while.

I'll start off by updating you guys with the progress of the Chaplain's face. Last time around I felt he was a bit red in the face so I went back to it and in between work I've touched up his face with some glazing and hopefully he looks a bit better? From the table he looks like he has enough contrast but input is always welcome as this guy is a character for the army.




Now, onto the freehand. I had a think about the freehand that was needed to progress the minis I currently have on my table and incidentally, all the space marines needed it in varying degrees. The Eradicators were first on the list as they were the closest to completion so I worked on their chapter symbol and squad markings as I don't have the decal sheet for them (left it in Ireland at Christmas). The fire support weren't all to difficult to replicate, and any mistakes can be covered with some weathering anyway. They got some weathering using mostly a fine sponge and then I went in and added more damage with a brush using brown and silver paint for the damage going beyond the primer layer, if such things exist in the 40k. Let me know what you think, I realise only now that they've not got any script on them and I haven't added pigment powers but they match my assault intercessors so I'm not too worried. With other models I may experiment more.

Fire Support Squad Kato








Once the eradicators were out of the way, I moved onto the Bladguard. According to their lore, they are typically attached as bodyguards to companies they go on campaign with and they mark their armour to denote that company but I left them with their silver trim from the Honoured First Company and used their tilt shields as an excuse to put some markings on there to show off that they're attached to the 5th company. I did think about having personal heraldry on their tilt shields but they are not Black Templars or any other chapter like that so I kept it simple. The only odd one out is the Mk7 helmed marine who has a templar cross on his shield which can be some honorific given to the marine in question for a campaign fighting alongside their brethren of the Black Templars. The veteran crosses on their pauldrons were probably the most difficult as the shape is big and chunky and I don't think I nailed the shape.








Finally, I did a little bit of freehand on the Lieutenant that I have been neglecting for so long. He got a checkerboard tilt shield as he's already part of the 5th company. I need to work on a bunch of things to improve the overall look of the model, like increasing the contrast of his tabard and I am tempted to revert his black faceplate to just white with a Lieutenant stripe.


Thanks for reading, I've got a good bit of work ahead of me with the loin cloths and tabards on the remaining minis so I'll try and hash them out over an evening or two. I also eBay'd some bits and pieces for minis in the future, as everyone needs some more power swords, axes, thunder hammers and the like!

-TH

Thanks for stopping by Scott, I'm glad you like the army and the basing. If you've not tried out oils or just want to try an oil wash, I highly recommend giving it a go. It's quite a rewarding process. I think you're right regarding the Judiciar helmet, I had originally meant it to be bone, but apart from the shoulder pad, you can't really tell what chapter he is a part of. Have to say, looking back at the text you pointed out, I'm really not sure if crying was a Freudian slip or not

Thanks Gobert and Captain Brown, the break did help I think. My issue with freehand is painting it over airbrushed white and mistakes mean I can't go back!

No photos, but I'm chipping away at the clothing on the Vets and other marines that have it. Should have something to show soon!

Cheers Dysartes! All it takes is an impulse buy and you have to get it done!

Hey all,

A rather small update for you all. Not much done on the Excoriators this past while but I'm working away on the clothing of the bladeguard etc. They're still a good bit of work and what I have done so far I don't think is worth taking a photo of so when you next see them they'll likely be done.

I have however, started another space marine for the space marine themed painting challenge and I picked Lieutenant Amulius as I felt I could do a good job with a character model for the month.

I am taking a slightly different approach with painting this guy as I want to try my hand at NMM but white is quite a difficult colour as is so this is an added challenge! Amulius isn't a bad model as a test piece either. He is static which means there isn't anything funky going on with lighting and he has mostly flat panels. If all goes well, I want to try some NMM on his Aquila and the other metal pieces so he'll be a blinged out space marine before he gets covered in dings and dents. The photos below show the difference between the zenithal prime and the first pass with my airbrush which took a bit over an hour to achieve. I do know there is some graininess in the mid-tones but I will be going back again to improve the blends. I was also thinking of adding some environmental lighting to the paint job too as I want the white armour to reflect his surroundings. Let me know what you think, I know it doesn't seem like a lot but I'm pretty pleased with my airbrush control and blending to get to this point.

Zenithal prime:


First pass with an airbrush, starting from black up to white with "cool" greys. I mixed in dark reaper, followed by celestra grey, then grey seer and finally a bit of white ink for the highest lights.







Thanks for looking/reading!

Thanks Gobert and Warboss_Waaazag! I really wanted a chapter with some established fluff but weren't done to death and these guys fit the bill. Glad you like them!

Made a wee bit more progress on Lieutenant Amulius over a couple of evenings. Having received some feedback from various sources, ranging from here on Dakka to some hobby groups on Discord, I've refined the NMM to a point where I think the mini looks like it has metallic components. More contrast=better! I realise now I haven't shown the initial stage of NMM so I'll post that first and then show the updated paint job underneath. I also did a quick oil pin wash to break up the panels and see where on the white armour I need to tidy up and any of the overspill you see will hopefully be covered by some edge highlights or glazes in the shadows. Next thing to do for the armour is edge highlighting and adding some reflective bounce lights on the inner legs and other parts of the body.

Finally, I have no company to assign this gent to. Should be the second Lieutenant for the 5th Company or should he be in a different company? I am undecided so feel free to jump in!

Older WIP


This evening's WIP:



Thanks for reading my quick ramble, I'm having a lot of fun pushing myself to paint like this, seems the tutorial watching is helping me!

-TH

Thanks youwashock!

Hey folks,

A quick update this evening. Steady work on the Lieutenant has been made with very little time spent on anything else and due to his lack of tabards, painting is a lot speedier than I expected. Basically worked on pushing the contrast in the NMM portions of the model, edge highlighted the white armour and worked on knocking out the leather parts too. The lenses got painted a dull red as it's not active and the purity seals got a nice pink colour. Some lettering to do on the purity seals themselves, but that's basically the body done.

I decided to make him the second 5th company lieutenant of my force, as I have plans to make a chapter scourge out of one of the Dark Imperium marines. I hope the black is readable as a shiny black and not grey. Dakka washes out the images a little so there is a bit more contrast, but hey, gotta make it look good for Dakka!









Maybe because I'm impatient, or lazy, or both, but I decided to airbrush his power sword. Based on the result, I'll likely need to go back in and work on the transitions by brush as my skills let me down a little bit. In future, I think less colour flips may be a good idea. You'll see I did some proper freehand work too. The fist was actually super easy to do as the shapes aren't very difficult. It is a little bit larger than the transfers, but it is good practice and no faffing around with transfers. The lightning bolts though, they're not so good. Yellow on white is hard to see and I made a few mistakes that aren't easy to fix over an airbrushed shoulder pad. Not the end of the world though, I'll work on touching it up.



Finally, I saw David Colwell released an overview of how he paints skin on his Instagram and figured I'd give it a try as I really enjoy his work. About mid way through the process right now, as I intend to lighten the skin tone up to a European tone. Still can't paint eyes, woeful stuff.





In other news, I signed up to Hachette's Imperium magazine which contains marines, necrons, sisters of battle and ad mech. That's coming in the late summer, which gives me a few months to knock out some of the marines I have. I'll likely be picking up duplicate issues if there are any places near me, so if someone wants cheap minis but don't have access to the magazine, drop me a line and I'll post to you at cost plus shipping.

Thanks for reading!

-TH

Maharg wrote:That space marine is coming along very nicely and the NMM experimenting is working well.

Cheers Maharg!

The Riddle of Steel wrote:White, black and red is such a striking and powerful color scheme. And your freehand is excellent - more ambitious than I would dare try. Very nice highlighting and shading on the white.

Thanks RoS! Give the freehand a go, you never know how you might do until you try!

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:The sword looks good. The head is fantastic, too. Nice job.

Thanks Warboss!

Theophony wrote: Nice smooth white . The metallic black trim looks the part and to me does not come across as gray.

Thanks Theo, glad it looks black and not grey, another set of eyes helps me to no end.

Captain Brown wrote:Tyranid Horde,

I would make him the second Lieutenant for the 5th Company. Otherwise you are going to get the urge to start another Company...

My two cents,

CB

Gone for 5th company and now considering what other companies could be cool to do.

gobert wrote:The white is looking really shiny, it’s almost a shame to chip it! The face is already looking great, I might have to look up this David Colwell

Thanks Gobert! I'm afraid the time for chipping has come, nearly didn't want to do it myself but hopefully the results are pleasing. David has some gorgeous works of art and his interviews are good listens.

Yorkright wrote: Your Lt. is going to be quite the showcase model when he is done. Smooth whites, vibrant reds, beautiful power sword and that face is looking great too. You are going to have to throw a few pics of your army together so we can drool over them also. Are you planning on doing any weathering on the holster and other leather bits?

He's kind of ended up that way hasn't he? I'll get some pics of the army soon as most are almost done. You make a fantastic point about weathering the holster and leather bits, I was so focused on weathering the armour I'd forgotten to weather those! I'll have that for the next update.

Hey all,

Another update this week, plugging away on a range of things this time as I find ways to dodge painting this lieutenant which has quickly become what will be my best piece to date. And speaking of, the lieutenant is almost done I would say. I decided to weather the armour with chipping and streaking and added a few bits of script to the armour where there is older damage and also added some script and text on the pauldron and purity seal paper. Still haven't painted in his eyes, it's a bit nerve wracking but I'll get round to it. Having the model fully built will help with pupil placement too as it's hard to decide what a floating head will be looking at. I touched up the sword a little bit, smoothing out blends with some glazing and adding some bright whites to increase the contrast and then I added a subtle OSL glow to the left greave; I didn't want it to be obvious, but the photos don't really show it too much. Also need to wrap up his little sculpted base thingy, as that may take some time with all the bolt shells and the chaos marine helmet at his feet.





I decided that I'd also make him a plinth. There is an online painting competition run by Cult of Paint in April/May so I figured I'd enter this chap as he's well on the way to completion and when things open up, I may bring him to an event or something. I've not entered any competitions before, and the painting challenge here is a good test bed I think. The plinth comes from the top of a hairspray bottle and I pressed the mini into the milliput to seat it correctly and allow me to sculpt around the sculpted base. Upon dry fitting with the miniature now, it doesn't fit well and there are a few gaps, but I'll fill those in and get it painted up (sorry for the gak photos, white primer is hard to photograph).




While I had my weathering toys out, I worked on the bladeguard and indomitus lieutenant to bring their armour up (or down? ) to a nicely weathered look after I worked on their cloth parts. No text on the bladeguard aside from their purity seals, I'd rather leave that until it is fully painted (still some bits to do). The ancient hasn't been weathered yet but I thought I would ask how best to proceed with his clothing. Should I increase the contrast on his robes as he's a gaming piece? Let me know!






Ancient:


Thanks for reading, I'll hopefully be wrapping up everything you see soon enough so you may see an update in a week's time

Cheers,

-TH

Thanks gobert!

Hey all,

I didn't expect to be posting another update so soon after the last one, but I finished off my Bladeguard and Lieutenant from Indomitus yesterday evening while listening to some podcasts and snapped a few photos. Let me know what you think!

Bladeguard Veteran Squad Gallax of The Honoured First








5th Company Corpus-Lieutenant Cambega Ortiger





These were fun to paint up for the most part and great models to boot. Feel free to have a look through the gallery at other angles, I didn't want to flood this post with half a dozen side and rear angles of the Bladeguard.

Thanks for reading!

-TH

Thanks gobert! I used zandri dust as my basecoat followed by ushabti bone for the higher points and then used skeleton horde contrast paint over the top with a highlight to finish it. I thinned the contrast paint with medium for the MkIII helmeted bladeguard and the lieutenant so it gave a lighter look which I prefer overall, but having different coloured bone works well enough I think.

Captain Brown wrote:Exalted Tyranid Horde.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks Cap!

Yorkright wrote: Love these guys TH, especially that weathering on the holster and tabard.

Cheers Yorkright! Added some weathering to the display Lt too, although will be going back in to add some more stark scratches like on the bladeguard.

The Riddle of Steel wrote:Wow, that weathering really adds to the realism. Looking better and better. The amount of detail you are putting into these guys is impressive.

And I agree the lighter bone on the shield does look a bit better. Very good bone effect and nice use of standard and contrast paints together on the same item to get the effect you want.

Thanks RoS! I like how easily the contrast paints have found a place in my painting routine. I was initially cynical, but not using them as intended seems to work!

kavika0311 wrote:Blade guard looks fantastic!

Thank you!

Maharg wrote:Bladeguard look great, I really like the weathering on these guys

Cheers Maharg, I was a little bit concerned I'd overweathered them.

Hey all,

Back with a small update. Lieutenant Amulius is now "finished"! I add the quotation marks as both QAR and DV8 gave me some feedback over on the Painting Challenge thread and made some very valid points which I intend to work on over the coming weeks. I think I'll leave him as is for now as I don't want to rush him for the sake of the challenge and there is a good bit of work to do to improve the look. The face in particular I am not very pleased with, I could blame the sculpt as the features are very sharp and my skin tones didn't help that and he looks very gaunt. I also can't paint eyes for gak! They'll be redone too along with the trim. Like the melon I am, I had forgotten my light source for the trim and it is mismatched to the pauldron's light source.

All that said, I am very happy overall. I feel like the base has turned out decently, my NMM has improved a lot and I can't wait to keep trying it, I tried out a subtle OSL effect from the blade and that felt good, and the weathering in general I am please with as I spent a lot of time on it and staring at other models and my own hiking boots which have a permanent dust in the cracks. The white armour looks good too, which I was concerned would be the most difficult part of the entire model but it wasn't in the end. I tried a white/off white background too and I think it is a bit more realistic than my usual black background for this guy for some reason. Anyway, photos!







(Big photos have been spoilered, should you want to have an in depth look at the mini.)


Thanks for reading this rather brief update, happy to say this is my best work so far and always welcome the feedback. It's a great motivator and I want to push myself to enter things into competitions when things open up.

Cheers!

-TH

Thank you Yorkright! It means a lot!