Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This is staggering stuff. Beautiful, inspiring work mate!

Dude this work is amazing, keep it up. Its so simple looking!! Great work

Lovely work. Makes me want to redo my Iron Hands.

All I can say about the sergeant is: WOW!!!

That is inspiring work. The whole thread has been great, but the sergeant is absolutely amazing.

Every time you start a project log I just feel like giving up- your stuff is amazing.

Well its been a good week at home and I am back to work tomorrow .. however not much modelling work done but lots of relaxation and good family times.

First up are a couple of models I have been preparing for painting. Nothing special, just a running special weapons marines and a normal firing marine with a FW special hand: -



Here you can see the Special weapon marine with the hand magnetised to take Flamer, plasma or melta: -



This is using the FW heresy style melta weapon .. which I like a lot!



Next is the Plasma gun and finally the Flamer.

They are stuck onto their "painting" base where they get undercoated and then painted and finally decalled.

They then get transferred over to their final bases shown below, the first one is a half water with a grill over it kind of thing. I used a hollowed out 25mm base with a bottom on it, I got them from Australia at Back2Basix however they did not appear as deeply "hollowed out" as I would have liked and I had to work at it to get what I wanted.



I then poured and use GW water effects and placed the grill on top as seen below, however I still think it needs at least another layer which will be another 24hrs to dry.



There are small silver seed beeds (0.5mm) in the water mix which when the other layer is poured will look like rising bubbles under the water. Oh I also mixed green ink with the water effects (which I am fairly certain is just pva glue) to give a dark green murky feel.

The other base is a drain cover from a WWII resin pack embedded into some tread plate with edging surrounding it. I made the rivets out of thin plasticard using my "punch and die" kit and then just stuck them on. I also did a little corner work with 45degree cuts to make it look slightly more realistic (basic rule of modelling, small detail can really help).

Finally I am working on a left handed set for firing marines as I am getting tired of using the same damn sets of arms everytime.

Here is the initial work, in comparison mode for me while I am finishing off with green stuff etc. it feels fairly similar to the other arm in size and orientation and just needs some work done on the joints with green stuff and some smoothing on the top of the hand.

These are some of the nicest space marines I have ever seen. I actually don't like space marines at all, but man.... these guys look awesome!

Can't wait to see that sargent painted up!

Love those FW spec weps. Especially the Meltagun. Might have to order me some when the big post holiday paycheck comes in.

Dude, your work is just inspiring!

I hope it is inspiring .. otherwise this is just a big opportunity to show off!

You should convert the Left-Handed Marine's Bolter to have a Vertical Forward Grip like this one; that way, you won't even need to change the angle of the hand.

I went to 4D modelling today. I loved it. Managed to keep my spending down to £125.

@ Fifty : I am glad you got away that cheaply ... its expensive but a great place!

Well its been a pretty poor week since I last posted (6 days), I have been working on the B&C Upgrade and dealing with a the kitchen roof having rotted and getting it repaired/rebuilt. All of which meant no time for painting or modelling which SUCKED.

Finally today I got to do some painting and decided to work on the special weapons marine I showed pictures of last time. I was thinking about the base I wanted to use for him and my time spent up on the roof had brought home to me that you have to move carefully in a dangerous environment. Well that was all I required to put together a very amusing base: -



The top right portion of the image shows a mine hidden under a loose floor plate, the other two pictures show the floor plate gently resting on top of the mine. With this arrangement I would use my running special weapons marine and position him rather unwisely about to run over the loose plate!

Here you can see him with FW old style multimelta in hand ... running forward over the now painted base: -



As you can see from the picture its likely he will catch the plate in passing, however lets not forget this is a Space Marine we are talking about and he may notice and evade at the last minute. I used the rust pigments extensively on the soles of his feet to make the figure feel "attached" to the base. In addition the end of the melta has "soot" residue around the end of the barrel, this was done with black MiG pigment and the MiG fixative to keep it in place (although I did wipe a little off to show a hint of metal).

I went for a two-tone metal solution for the gun as there was not enough visible casing to paint white, I then used badab black wash to add depth and shading and finally used Tamiya clear paint to "gloss" some parts of the gun and not others. All of this added enough variation to the weapon to stop it looking "bland" metallic. The Bronze used draws the eye to the Melta when your looking at the figure, which was what I was looking to achieve.



In the last picture you can see the mine under the plate waiting for the left foot to swing onto it. Also the rust weathering is staining the white tactical arrow on the leg, the large expanse of white leads me to do something to it on every figure I paint.

It was good today to get back into painting my Iron hands and as I am home tomorrow I will be doing another figure!

Nice, simple base touch. Looks good!

Looking forward to getting my hands on some of those MiG pigments next time I have some spare $$.

I love those FW special weapons. Asked for some for Xmas, but alas did not get them :(

The MiG pigments or the FW pigments are definitely worth getting. Mig Jiminez (the MiG owner) did a good article on using pigments here: -

http://www.missing-lynx.com/rare_world/rw05.htm

With the completion of two more marines (to be shown later) I once again returned to base making, so far the base making is giving me a chance to tell some stories and another outlet for my urge to create. I am happy with the "Rusty" hulk/spaceship feeling so far but decided to look into a more realistic looking rust theme last week. Rust to me always has "volume" and texture as well as colour, I wanted to try and capture the almost flaky/layered quality it seems to have.

Here are the two bases I did this week seeking that effect: -



The "Ducting Cover" base above is the one I think I am happiest with overall ... it captures for me the texture and "volume" I am looking for. Every time I look at it I can see layer upon layer of rust with parts chipped away and revealing metal underneath where the duct has been used. This "recent" usage feeling is something I try to put in most of the base work as an overarching theme, the bases are meant to look rusty and old, but at the same time with little clues that hint that someone or something has been here recently. Like leaving grate covers open, small scuff marks showing metal under rust, removed floor plates and mines placed under tiles. These should all combine to aid the story we are trying to tell for the squad, advancing into what they believe is an occupied space hulk and once again small details aid believability and help to support the background we wish to convey to the observer at a sub-concious level.



For the second base I aimed at slightly less rust, attempting to practice and gain control of the new technique I was using. As I had mentioned in an earlier post (the Sgt. post) we are often helped in many ways by what we see others do and this is a good thing, but unless we try and build upon what we see and develop our own techniques we can end up stifling our own creativity. Accepting someone else's "solutions" is a good way to learn new things, but it should not stop us trying to do better on our own, standing on the shoulders of giants so to speak. That was the reason for this new rust technique, seeing if I could find a way to get what I wanted in my minds eye.

When I made the bases, I was visually more pleased with the second base, I quite liked the small floor based "control panel" next to the conduits/cables, while the first base was quite simple in design and was sufficient for the task (having depth under the grate etc), it also felt a bit boring in some ways. However for me that turned around after painting and rusting, the complexity of the layers of rust brought the first base to life for me in a way which the second base didn't have (with its less rusty approach).

So .. before I post the new Space Marines on the bases, which base do you prefer ? ... and does the rust look more realistic than my previous work ?

I like both, but I think I prefer the first one slightly. It really does have a layered flaky look to it.

I cant wait to see more keep it up!

Looks great..... keep it up.

Yes, the rust does look more realistic, like you said it's flakey and layered.
I think the first one looks more rusty than the second, or that the second is a cleaner rust (Like someone has tried to clean away the flakes)

I think they come from different locations perhaps .. the first one from a corrosive area ? ... the second from somewhere less so!

Wow, these guys are incredible! Keep it up!

Your marines look fantastic. The bases are beautiful and really add to the paint job.

Your method for painting lenses really makes them pop and stand out from the rest of the model.

I will be keeping my eye on this one.

As part of a speed experiment I painted two marines at the same time last week. The times broke down in the end to: -

Painting Figure - 2.5hrs
Painting Base - 30 mins
Decals (3) - 15 mins

So I am at about 3hrs 15 mins per figure, which is a little higher than I had thought, but the results seem worth it, especially considering my Salamanders were more like 10-11hrs each. I still want to keep the timing as low as possible, so that I can actually get some units together and possibly even PLAY 40k!

As already mentioned last week was painting/weathering experiment week, trying new things and challenging older ideas. This marine was the first using the Forgeworld Bionics from the character set, but in all other respects he was a normal marine with no special modelling. Given his "normality" I planned to extend the rust weathering to other areas of the body, I decided on areas likely to touch walls and floor and as such the knees, shoulderpads and backpack vents.



I kept the shoulderpad and backpack weathering light for this model to get a "view" on it, but I think it adds a little without detracting from the monochrome colour scheme. The knees got a little more weathering than the higher stuff, more in keeping with how I had done the feet.



Overall the "stepping" pose on the base worked nicely and with the marine now on the base it has returned to being my favourite out of the two again. Damn I am fickle!

Overall I was pleased with the result and may spread "the rust" to the rest of the marines ... What do you think ?

They are awesome. Loving the weathering on the marines.

O the Bases are pretty cool Wish I could convert like that.

30 minutes on the base? o_O

But it does look really nice.

Man... I really need more $. Materials realyl do help. I want some of those pigments really badly.

This.
Is.
Amazing.

The second marine this week was an attempt to add simple battle damage to a shoulder pad and try out the other Iron Hands box set Bionic Head. I must say the asymmetric lens made me unsure about this one, it just feels weird to me every time I look at it .. even when finished, to the extent I am not sure I would use this head type again.



You will notice the damage to the shoulderpad, either a sword or claw strike across the pad, added after the decal and touched up. It had been commented there shoulderpads were not getting their fair share of "damage", so I am working on different techniques to show damage on them!



In keeping with the heavily rusted / corroded base I decided to add more weathering to the feet/lower legs than normal and also to the Tactical symbol on the greave (I really just wanted to try the kneepad symbols on the FW decal sheet). This should show the worse environment this marine is advancing through ...

Lastly I have a group shot showing my current eight marines all together ... almost up to the squad now .. only got the Heavy Weapon marine and the Sgt to do ...



I am pleased with the cohesive feel they have

They look really nice together well done!

Sorry buddy I don't think they work, give them to me and start again, kidding of course.

Great start for an army, couple of questions, the styrene tile and diamond tread patterned sheets, what scale/measurements are those in. Secondly what is you process for the metals, I'm currently starting a Doom legion army so I'm gathering some research on different techniques.