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Meph, I understand that completely, I however feel like leaving things out incase I'm not up to painting details on a particular project, I can paint up some terrain or build a kit whatever I see in the "studio" which is under construction and I'm lucky to have it. When I was single and in a tiny apartment I made do with little space. That was a cave for sure, I had to use true light bulbs in my lamp.

I left my mates back in Tennessee, we all had tables and stocked refrigerators with beers... The good ole days, I left in 2007 so I've really played twice since... I am relieved to be back into my favorite hobby. No gaming friends yet here in Bentonville Arkansas...


Chance you could do a layer by layer set of photos on those assault marine's helmets? If it's too much trouble then no big deal.

What are the torsos from? Thanks for post more pictures man, always a pleasure to catch your WIP and the final miniatures.

The torsos are mostly the ones from Forgeworld MKiV assault Squad. The sergeant is made from Death Company parts, and the combat squad veteran has a torso (the one with the armoured tabard) from FW's MKIV power weapons set.

Yeah, sure man, once I get to the helmets I can do a step-by-step.In any case I'll have to reconstruct the yellow recipe which I used on the Land Speeder crew. The mix I saved in a sealed airbrush pot has dried out completely. :( But that means I also have a tone sample of the base colour.
But I can't remember if I started from a black of brown under coat. I'll have to dig through my own thread to see if I mentioned it somewhere or not, lol.

In the mean time I've managed to black out 5 marines already. Damn, this is tedious, really a job where you have to force your mind to shut off...

They look really good as black and red. What kit is the pointing hand from?

Thanks, Snrub!
I think it's from the command squad sprues.

How hard are the holsters to remove form the destroyer legs? Or better yet, are they not attached?

They come separate.

Cool! I cringe over the dried mixed paint, never has worked for me, I get back to it and it's shot. I've resorted to a small Moleskin notebook for paint mixture notes and small sketches etc.

Do you have a local that carries Forge World or do you mail order? The conversion and price is huge to me as an American. Otherwise I'd be all over FW marines!!

 Meph wrote:
They come separate.

That's interesting mine came attached.

They are looking good so far with the base layers down Meph.

@Kelly502: Well, being just across the Channel from the UK, I order FW stuff straight from FW. The shipping's not that bad that way.
Say but wouldn't it be possible to do a mass-order to the US? Above a certain amount there's free shipping, no? Or just slowly save up for one megalomanic Forgeworld orgasmatron!

@Giraffe: Ah, I assumed they would have a similar setup but that assault squad is the straight-up the MKIV assault Squad, not the Destroyers.

No progress over the weekend though, blacked out another marine or two on Saturday and Sunday went to the airshow of the Belgian Air Force to celebrate their centennial. Damn, saw some cool stuff. The F-16's were impressive as always, and the display teams were toight!. An F-16 poining his nozzle at you with full afterburn sure does make the hair stand up on your arms. And a Rafale doing a show pass at a ridiculous angle makes your bones vibrate to the core...
Too bad the Italian Typhoon and American F-15 wimped out and were only on static display. The Italian commentator during the frecce Tricolore's display was hilarious though, it was like being part of an "'Allo 'Allo" special.
So some pics from their site as my photos were bloody useless...

Looks like a little airfield seizure maneuver there in the one pick with what appears as troops on the ground.

Wow a Fulcrum!

Oh, about Forge World mass orders, I was a DCM here on Dakka, and that is a benefit of connecting with the other DCM's some of them get together and do a mass order. I need to rejoin, I need to give back into the Secret Santa this year, that was a blast! You get assigned a Secret Santa pal and find out discreetly what he/she is collecting or into, then try to give them something nice they can use, they do have an amount that is recommended to give in example the size of the parcel you are sending, but they don't limit it if you want to go overboard, going overboard in giving is always fun!
So being involved in a mass ordering of FW kits could occur if I rejoin the DCM crew.

Yeah, the assault demo was pretty cool. Combat landing and-take off by the herc (deploying an APC in the process). Agusta attack variant doing low cover, two pairs of F-16's doing top cover. Lots of smoke and noise and an incomprehensible commentator.

Finally, the blacking of details is done. I painted a two or three marines a day for a total of of 6 or 7 hours of painting.
Rather slow, but any care taken now makes it easier down the road. Even so, because it was so repetitive my concentration, and thus also my brush, slipped here and there but it's so little it will be easily absobed into the weathering later on.

I've just looked through this whole thing, and in a word: inspirational! Excellent paintwork and conversions making a great looking force. I'm about the be resurrecting my own BA, and this will be a great source of ideas.

Subbed!

Inspirational indeed.

Thanks guys!
@Paradigm: Glad you're along for the ride!

Alrighty, secondary colours painted in. Some touch-ups are needed here and there but I'll see how the oil paint was goes later on.
Currently they're a bit shiny as they have a coat of Klear on them, the decals are applied and received two coats of Micro Sol. Some stabbing and more Sol is needed to blend 'm in nicely.

So that means I can get started on the helmets so I can assemble the models and then they'll be ready for an oil paint wash and some weathering.

Wow, that gold is very cool!

Good looking stuff in here Meph.

Thanks, guys!

So, first coat on the helmets, Valejo's Flat Earth. I can't remember at all if I gave the speeder pilots' helmets a brown coat or not, so I'm going to leave it at this second coat, with some of the black still coming through.
I also found the yellow mix I had made for them in an airbrush jar, which apparently doesn't seal 100% anymore so well, erm, at least I have a perfect colour sample of the base colour to try and emulate again.
Alrighty, off the alchemy shed...

Could you maybe rub the helmets on the paint like it was a bar of soap and hope it transfers?



But you know, as usual, looking good.
Love your reds.

Agh I just love when that happens. Hopefully you arent too set back. I know how much of a pain yellow mixes can be to replicate!


So I'm really kicking myself for not popping in and reading through here sooner. Absolutely love your work.
I always enjoy watching progress shots of minis. It really gives you insight into the painter's techniques. Maybe ill actually learn to do weathering.... You just make it look so easy!

Those single engine jump packs are the BA ones just without the wings, correct? I rather like the look of them that way.

Also, I'm particularly interested in how you do your golds... They have a nice muted, almost greenish tint to them. Mind sharing a bit?



In any case, keep it up, and I'll be looking forward to seeing more!



(Oh, and awesome Air Show photos... I have a particular fondness for jets, myself... Really have to find out when a show is coming through around here!)

@Snrub: LMAO! That would be utterly brilliant!

@Ramos Asura: Cheers, mate! Welcome, stay a while!
Weathering is actually easier than it looks. Patience is the key ingredient as gradually adding up 'layers' is what makes it work.
There are quite a few extensive posts in here (only 17 pages at the forum's #posts per page at max ), but feel free whenever you have a specific question. I'd be happy to answer.

For the gold. Well, that was deceptively easy to be honest. As a base coat i use a +- 50/50 mix of Vallejo's Tin Bitz and their copper colour (basically one shade lighter than tin bitz). And then the magic trick is Vallejo's smokey ink. That ink is really thick, I just smear that on pretty thick on the gold/bronze parts (taking care not to soil the surrounding areas) and then... immediately rub it off with a finger in the desired direction. This removes the ink from the raised areas, leaves it in the recessed areas, and gives it a nice feather in the transition areas. And after then I just give it a two drybrushed highlights using two different GW golds.
And that's it. It's really the smokey ink and finger rubbing that do the trick. But you have to be quick and work one one detail at a time as you don't want to leave smears all over your model. But it's a method that goes really fast and produces great results.

The Sanguinary guards received a few more highlights, I went through all the golds I could find, and they received a thinned sepia wash as well. But the difference with my 'short' technique is subtle.


Oh, and on a different notes, check out these two photos from the airshow in Kleine-Brogel (The Belgian air base where the US stores 20-odd nuclear weapons). Last of the show was Al Fursan from the Arab Emirates. The screw they pulled across the runway... (high-res)

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/Kleine-Brogel-1.jpg
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/Kleine-Brogel-2.jpg

That is some gorgeous flying....


And alright, Meph. Ill take a peek through the history of this blog and see if I cant learn a thing or two

Brilliant technique for gold, too. I could have sworn you were using the Vallejo Alcohols- the base coats and blends are just so smooth! Awesome then, I think im gonna look ito the smokey ink. Has a particularly interesting color

In the mean time...



This week, oi 'ave been mostly painting 'elmits!





The camera's colour balance does goes a bit haywire with such a big block of yellow, but especially the last row is pretty close to the true colour.

I think it took around 8 coats to lay down the base colour. Yellow's notoriously transparent, and then it needed to be thinned more for the airbrush, but it came out pretty nice. It's basically a 1:1 mix of GW's Sunburst Yellos and Golden Yellow (now thóse are some old pots, lol), and then thinned again to roughly 1:1 paint to thinner/Klear/demineralized water. Too much thinner would have faded the delicate yellow colour too much, hence some Klear and demin. water.

Then I drybrushed 6 consecutively lighter highlights on. Sunburst Yellow, SY+Vallejo's Ice Yellow, SY+more IY. Then cleaned the palette and continued with pure IY, IY+white, pure white.

Next up was a wash of 1:1 sepia and yellow inks, thinned to 1:1 paint:demin. water & some Klear. I mixed this with a tiny, tiny drop of dishwashing detergent to better mix the inks and the water. Especially the gryphonne sepia ink tends to be a bit too coherent and the detergent really mixing everything smoothly together. Tiny drop means the tip of a toothpick moist with detergent.

And finally they received a soft drybrush of Ice Yellow to lighten up the edges again.



I'll let it sit for a show while and then decide if they another glaze or wash. In any case they'll get an oil paint wash the colour will be deepened a bit by that.

So here's the last two steps before assembly. (I also updated the close-up photo strip)
Of course, I was a bit eager to glue them together and so I can do the weathering separately...



Aaand here they are stuck together with a coat of Klear on top. I'll have to redefine some edges here and there as the varnish muted it a bit. The sarge already received his freshen-up.
And then it's on to some light sponge-weathering..

Looks sharp! They really do pop!

That yellow is damn sexy. I like the way it looks kind of pastel compared to the deep rich red of the armour.

Nice job on the yellow Meph! Love it

Awesome

Seriously nice work there Meph. Looking forward to seeing them completed!

Very slick work. Love that combination of yellow and red.
Certainly going to be interesting seeing how they change once you start to weather it all.