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Heya, great progress!

I will note: If/When you buy 'good' brushes, you should look at the brush care tutorials, and buy some brush cleaner/maintainer. When you invest, you should maximize your investment.

Looking forward to more!

--Brian

So it's been a little while since my last update. I've been crossing the 'T's and dotting the 'I's so to speak. Putting some of the finishing touches to my termies and the weapons I want to use initially. I've also been repainting some blood claws and have done myself a nice wolf lord and a lone which will all be added soon. Still a bit worried about all the rest I have left to do, a WG squad, a GH squad and a nice shiny new box of scouts. Not to mention an Iron priest and a few other doo dahs.

I've been focusing a lot on smaller details and whilst they still have some imperfections I'm hoping as I continue I can iron some of these out. I'd like to think the standard is table top good to tournament acceptable though judging by some of the crap that eBay sellers call 'Pro painted' I could consider giving up my day job. (Joke)

Have played 3 games now and all ended in defeat, my guys just weren't killy enough and really struggled with a couple of high toughness monsters. I don't think it helped that wasn't using all my special rules to the best of my interest and had also paid for things I wasn't using.

I feel this revised termie squad is a bit more battle ready with plenty of x2 S firepower coming from the fists and TH.

As always comments are eagerly welcomed

Thanks.

Here's my termies 99% finished

Great work mate. They look really good. The bases are amazing and you've nailed the edge highlights now...

Thanks McManiac, the edges worked out a little better thanks to some general dry brushing. My Hard line highlights still need a lot of work though. How are your alien 'nids coming along?

Alien nids are shelved mate. They don't work in the new codex and were only ever a themed army so can just look nice in the cabinet. Working hard (ish) on my White Scars company at the moment then gave a massive Nurgle project to take on.

Waiting for GW to make more bikes, because you own all the others.

Really nice looking Wolves, you can be very proud of them . Color is a bit strange on the first sight but my personal opinion it does work indeed.
Definitely following.

 andywalker07 wrote:
Waiting for GW to make more bikes, because you own all the others.

Never will I make another bike......I think?

Ok so it's been a while since I last posted but I've been happily painting, playing and building and now I think I've bitten off way more than I can chew by buying what I now have come to learn is one of the most ridiculously difficult builds in all the forgeworlds - The dreaded Storm Eagle. Armed only with 4 months experience in modelling and raw enthusiasm I plan to conquer this horrid mass of resin hell. Updates will follow.

It's actually pretty remarkable how well purple works with Space Wolves. The blending of the highlighting is really ace. Great job!

Thanks Bob, I really appreciate when people like the colour, I had to make it myself.


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I'm wondering what a purple Storm Eagle is going to look like though haha

A purple storm eagle will look brilliant....

As for the build......

....NIGHTMARE.....

I built a fire raptor which is pretty much the same kit. A few tips for you are to ignore the stage instructions and put the whole hull together at the same time. Get the resin nice and warm with water or hairdryer and then glue the lot.
I used 2 part epoxy resin as it gives time for mobing before setting and then held it together with clamps overnight.

There is a lot of alteration (filing and trimming) to make the resin fit with the plastic so dry fit is VERY important.

Good luck with it tho mate. When built it is a lovely model and worth taking the time.

TBH after very minimal clean up and a bit of reshaping everything looks like it should go together without too much hassle. The only Issue so far is the rear door not locking into the clasps (some of which are snapped) but I'm hoping just pinning the end will suffice

Yeah, I've heard nothing but bad things about building that model.

Hot water cured most of the warping but generally it isn't too bad. Perhaps I've been very lucky in the quality of the pieces. Surprised how far I've got without instructions too

Cool Wolves! Those terminators turned out great. The crisp yellow really helps too. I look forward to seeing how your vehicle turns out.

OK so I've finished painting the inside and have fully assembled the storm eagle taking time to hinge the front and rear doors and magnetise all the weapon options. I've also hinged the cock pit cover to allow a better look inside, the windscreen for the cockpit has holes all through it as battle damage and is coming along nicely. I may even magnetise the missile carapices so I can swap them and change the look. For now I only have pics of the interior but I've also got pics of my fenrisian wolves.

Woof

And here's the interior.

Given up trying to paint the exterior white. Screaming Bell is much easier to get even.

Been a while since I posted here and hoping it tells in the quality of my painting. Thought I'd add the stuff I've been working on lately including some ruins and other terrain pieces.

Welcome back! Nice work!

I just read through the thread and those models you most recently posted look so much better than the first ones (and your first models weren't bad at all).

You seem to have really developed a good understanding of where to put and progress through the highlights, do you have any tips on this?

I especially like that terminator's shin pads where they progress from black at the bottom through purple, up to a edge highlight at the top which manages to look like light being caught on the edge of the plate as he moves.

Thanks Nareik, I really appreciate the comment. It takes me a lot of time to paint a single mini and the thought of reaching the level of quality worth spending that time is what motivates me to do better. I'm still a long, long way away from where I want to be but I hope to get there.

I don't think I'm in a position to give advice on how you SHOULD paint but I'm happy to talk about how I paint

(BTW the paints I use are mostly citadel , not a comment on how I rate them above other brands, they're just what I own. You could substitute for colours from other brands, I just find I'm familiar with the consistencies with citadel paints.)

I start by priming with cheap £1 auto spray primer, then base all the armour with Naggaroth night base paint. It covers nicely and gives a deep colour to begin with. Then I base the other areas with their respective colours, brown for the brass, white for the seals etc.

Then I wash with Nuln oil. You could use leviathon purple for a smoother transition but I like the stronger contrast. Once dry I redo all the base colours using a slightly more thinned down paint and the technique below.

I like to keep the lower parts of each section darker. By this I I don't mean do the legs dark and the arms light but rather the bottom of the legs dark and the tops light and the same for the arms.

If I'm blending a light shade into one of these darker parts I like to start high and feather down which gives a less stark transition. I'll do this with progressive layers finishing higher up on the part each time until the last layer is pretty much just a small stroke that covers 5-10% on the vertical surface.
Now you can do this with as little as three layers (Base, layer 1 & layer 2) but I have 3 colours (Base - Naggaroth, layer1 - Xereus purple, layer2 - a custom mix of mostly xereus with some screamer pink and grey.) and go base then 50/50 with layer1, then solid layer 1 then 50/50 layer1 & 2 then solid layer 2.

Please note if I've got a shadowy area above the surface I'm painting, like an overhang, I'll ditch the feathering and go with a straight line across leaving a small part of the previous colour behind

Then in select areas I'll hit a thick line highlight of solid screamer pink thinned down with water (Which it can take because it's a base paint and as such it's pigment content is higher.) Then my top highlight is Vallejo squid pink. I try to avoid GW for line highlighting as the layer and edge paints have such low pigment density that by watering them down enough to get a smooth paint that transfers from brush to tip without drying too quickly they go really really transparent and I want a strong highlight.

This is painstaking and if I'm painting a larger area like on a tank or a dread, I'll stipple instead of feather. The stippling doesn't really work on minis because the brush is too big to get the areas you want and not the ones you don't.

There you have it. I hope this helps. Sorry it was a long reply but I spent 10's of hours looking for help online when I started painting and wished other painters were more forthcoming with their experience.

BTW I really like your chaos army, lots of metallics - something I have yet to get good at. Keep up the good work.

That's a great post, Andy. As you say, not many people are as forthcoming, so this post does you credit.