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Hey all.

After taking a long break (7 years) from 40k i have decided to get back into the swing of it. In my early days 15 years ago when i was a wee pup all i cared about was wining and painting was more of a chore or a way to get a few cheeky points in tournaments if you followed a checklist.

That has all changed for me now as my last army before leaving the hoby took me close to 500+ hours to paint (nids) and now al i realy care about is painting and playing second.

so my challenge is to paint an army in half the time it took me to do the last and also expand my knowledge base in painting. So i hit the forums and youtube to find out cool new ways to paint mini's. That's how i came across the fact most of the top army painters use an airbrush. <<< if only i had one of them years ago... Anyway im rambling.

I have always enjoyed 3 foot painting as when ur playing thats what you see a model at. So many times have i spent hours on a mod and in bad light you just cant tell. As im doing a marine army 3 foot marines arn't very east to do as they have too many curves. I want to create this with blending caused by directional airbrushing. I also want a large number varying units to practice on diff styles.

So techniques i want to use on this army are. Airbrush blending with alot of preshading. OSL, pin washing, NMM gold's, display board, cracked earth bases (dry barron theme) and freehand work + a few conversions. As i have never done any of this before it should be very interesting, well for me anyway.

anyway people wan't pictures not reading. Their are progressive shots along with a few semi finished. Im trying to get the whole army to a std and move onto the next so i can start playing in tournaments with them then go back over and finish them off.

Here is a list of the toys i will be painting up along with pritty much my 1750 tournment list.

forge world Libby with jump pack and power sword (convert with Snag's wings)

forge world priest, jump pack

2 untis of 10 strong jump packers meltaguns, fist, power wep etc

10 death company drop pod bolters,fist and power wep

vindi with sheild

typhoon speeder.

stormraven (freehand work on this bad boy) < dont like the mod too much so will need something to make it pop.

forge world contemptor dred with second companys army to make a furioso dred.

scouts (combination of snipers and bolters + will do both heavy wep versions.

5 storm sheild terminators. have go the cool space hulk guys for this and am converting them with 2 dif second companys hammers and sheilds.

and thats about it for now.

looking forward to seeing your results, im in a very similar situation to you, in that i would like to reduce the time it takes me to paint an army via using a airbrush, but have never used one before, i also like the 3foot painting method.


subbed

So first up is my HQ wanted a libby and i love the forge world model but needed him to look more blood angel. have used some green stuff and also added wings. Also bellow is the style of bases i am going for (for my speeder).














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I started with my tanks as i realy wanted to test what i could do with an airbrush. I have gone for a realy deep red knowing when in bad light that will help add shading. Again most of these are work in progress.









the drop pod i wanted the colour to go from dark to light and once again when ur in bad light this realy comes into play








they were all before battle damage and pigments so just the blending of the airbrush.


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the battle damage (was very nervous when doing this as their is no way to fix the mistakes as you cant paint blend without using the airbrush again.









thats also my test mod for my jump packers.


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their not 100% done as they still need detail work, but was happy with the colour tone from the airbrush and the NMM gold.


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My death company have been fun to paint and i have done more on them than any of the other units. i tried to do grey blends over black but they just looked grey. i want these guys to be Black as black can be with pop details.













again they still arnt finished but im going to move on.


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my contemptor, had alot of fun posing this guy. he is sooo much bigger than std dred. Prob not a good thing ingame but looks sometimes means more.







and last of all my freehand on my stormraven. Again i had never tried to do any before and was a massive risk. I wanted something that wasnt just std blood angels but still had a space marine feel. As you might be able to tell my main colours i have gone for army wide are deep reds, purple for the gems, gold everywere and white for a pop colour. so i needed my bigest mod in the army to follow suit.









as the other pics these all all WIP shots and will only post finished mods when the whole army is finished. I wanted to use the airbrush as a tool to get base colours and blends down then then hand paint the rest as i don't like the look of armys that are just straight airbrush.

Wow! Great job! And the freehand? Amazing! Keep up the good work!

These are excellent, I love the deep red you've gone for.
Especially like the drop pod, very crisp.
Keep up bud, looking forward to seeing more.

I came for the thread title, i stayed for the beautiful models.

I love the Severin Loth model and yours is just fantastic looking. And that mural on the stormravens wings.


Certainly looking forward to seeing more.

Whoa! Talk about making some SM players jealous

Cheers for the nice comments guys. im working on the contemptor, scouts and my libby atm and will hopefully get some picks up further in the week.

well here is a bit of a WIP shot for my dread. still need to do base and OSL from the claws so that should really give it some colour. the yellow bases are a very strong contrast and if i can pull of the same look on the claws glowing onto the base like i did on the death company sword i will be more than happy. I did a fair bit more blending on this guy from dark to light similar to my drop pod the stronger tones of red are directional from above leaving the legs darker from the army and main body over shadowing. I will have this guy done by the weekend as i really have the painting bug atm.

I did the helmet white to start of with and it looked awful. So went with the yellow so he ties in with my jump packers in a way. Im thinking of doing a 4mm thick black line down the middle of the helmet but not 100% committed in doing that. Would love some opinions on that.

Dat freehand. Well done!

Very nice all around. Subbed for sure.

These are beautiful, and I'm loving the freehand on your storm raven. You have a lot of talent. I think the black line on the contemptor would look pretty interesting.

Well still needs a bit of work but this guy was a pleasure to assemble and paint not sure if i will finish him or move onto the next as i have a tight deadline to be ready for terracon in June. i think my bases need some tall dead grass on them so will get onto that as this base needs just a little something. I didnt go overboard with the OSL as it would just overtake the whole mod, still prity happy with him so far. Now to smash out some scouts.

How are you doing these bases? I understand the coark but the rest of it, is just wow I don't even know.

Really nice stuff. Great work.

Absolutely amazing work there!

Very nice, love the lighting.

 Nafarious wrote:
How are you doing these bases? I understand the coark but the rest of it, is just wow I don't even know.

its just a simple paste. you put pva on the base let that dry then apply the paste then wet it and smooth it out. the more you use the bigger the cracks etc. Realy basic. i wanted to use the paste as it will be realy easy to do a display board for. If you want to know were i got it from and a vid send me a pm.

cheers for all the nice comments.

With this army i didn't want anything more than just above ave table top std for tournments so im trying not to spend to much time on them as im already missing tourments i wanted to go to.

So im working on the bases, doing some tall grass and wasn't sure what would look better light blonde/sandy looking grass or something darker?

This is some really great work. Loving severin loth and the Osl on the dc power sword and the dread. I'm dying to try this but a bit scared of hitting finished models with the airbrush.

Keep up the good work. Well subbed.

have used an old shoe brush to make some tall grass.

Do you guys think i need any freehand on the dred? or at least some more blood angel symbols at least? i don't want to over do it or make it look too bland either.

might look at doing it dark around the reeds and possibly a little muddy. like slightly wet mud that hasn't gone completely dry yet like the rest of the base.





sorry photo's are a bit dark. Would really like some feedback on this as its doing my head in. Negative feedback also.

My only critique would be that the glow is too bright on the ground. I think itd be closer to the dim look on its lower leg. Those claws would have to be many times brighter/glowier (yea its a real word ) to leave a glow like that.


Otherwise, that is a fantastic looking dread man, very nicely done

All kinds of awesome going on there mate , my next painting task is to learn OSL so will be referring to your pics !

Only thing I thought was the free hand on the Thunderhawk could use wings round the skull on both sides .... maybe thats my OCD kicking in !

KingCracker wrote:My only critique would be that the glow is too bright on the ground. I think itd be closer to the dim look on its lower leg. Those claws would have to be many times brighter/glowier (yea its a real word ) to leave a glow like that.


Otherwise, that is a fantastic looking dread man, very nicely done

Big H wrote:All kinds of awesome going on there mate , my next painting task is to learn OSL so will be referring to your pics !

Only thing I thought was the free hand on the Thunderhawk could use wings round the skull on both sides .... maybe thats my OCD kicking in !

Thanks guys that's what im looking to hear. The OSL will always look stronger in a photo because of a flash but i was thinking to myself their was to much glow and i am going to do wings on the other side as its anoying me that it's not ballanced. Cheers heaps guys.

As i said this is an experiment army trying new things so i wan't to know what works and what doesnt.

Still need to varnish all my mods but cant findone that i like that i can get through the airbrush. anyone know of some good ones?