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First some pretty pictures!



(Eldar starts half way down the second page).
Now I have (hopefully) got your attention, a bit about me. I'm from the UK, 17 (18 in April!) and waiting until september where I'll begin studying medicine. I've been playing 40k for ages (since primary school), but after a 2 year break, I've started again, and have decided to share my Imperial guard and there new knight buddies with everyone here on dakka. This is my first blog so be gentle!

Some fluff on my forces if your interested:


Now, to models:

Death Korps first.
These are models I completed before my break from the game.



Below are my current WIP pics of a bunch of dudes.






Knight next.
The metal has so far been primed black, painted boltgun, and heavily (read badly) drybrushed with runefang steel.



The next update will get it looking closer to this:


He is magnetised at the waist, feet, gun barrel, shoulders and elbows.



The head shown above is my interpritation of house Terryn colours, only on his face so far. I can't paint any of the other armour as I'm waiting for a new can of army painter to come in the post, along with another knight! So that, along with (hopefully) a batrep showing off these guys, is to look forward to!

Also, 2 of my favorite old models I painted before my long hiatus.


Thanks for looking guys. Any tips, criticisms and comments are especially welcome, and in particular, how to take less sucky photos! (My excuse for the bad paints is the camera ) Also, I need name suggestions for my knight, and soon-to-come inquisitor! (Read the fluff!)

Cheers Guys
JP

That Knight looks great without its armour, reminds me of a giant Cylon .

New update, with a rusty knight! Just begining to match the metal frame with the skeleton of the head from the OP.





Still want some advice on photo taking if anyone has any. And I have a cool surprise which is coming in the post tomorrow...

Stay tuned!
Cheers

JP

Post arrived today! Some new stuff:


And some more work on the first knight. The rust is coming along nicely if I do say so myself.

Really liking that colour scheme on those DK. The blue and rust works pretty damn well.

Knight's looking very good too. Looking forward to seeing it finished.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Really liking that colour scheme on those DK. The blue and rust works pretty damn well.

Knight's looking very good too. Looking forward to seeing it finished.

Cheers man. It'll be quite a long process though, especially with this latest edition:


Will be running them out with my guard this Saturday. I hope to finish at least the skeletons of both by then, and then make a decent start on the armour, once my new can of blue spray turns up. The infantry is on the back burner at the moment, as I think I may do a few test Scythes of the Emperor tests next.

Cheers
JP

OHO I have a question.
Is there a way to mount the stubber in the right side?

Also, the first knight helmet is looking great. Will you keep the quartered pattern?

 livanbard wrote:
OHO I have a question.
Is there a way to mount the stubber in the right side?

Also, the first knight helmet is looking great. Will you keep the quartered pattern?

Yeah, I am fairly sure you could swap over the stubber with the shield. The mechanism for attachment is the same. It looks like this:



Don't worry, those mold lines will be gone, or at least hidden.
I haven't really decided on the final colour scheme yet. Rusty metal and blue will be the main colours, to go along with the army theme, and tie in house Terryn. I think I may use white in a few set areas, then personalize each knight a bit further.

Cheers
JP

Looking very nice. Like the colour choices. Rust looking very effective. I would possibly add some grease or oil around the joints, because he looks close to rusted solid.

As to your photography, £20 on a light box with lamps off ebay will sort it no bother. It is the direction and colour of the light your using that is throwing it a bit at the moment. Daylight bulbs and having multiple light sources, including one from behind the camera will help considerably.

Looking forward to seeing more, great stuff so far.

Not a huge amount of progress. I spent a lot of my time cleaning up my desk.


And now for actual interesting stuff... primed the second knight with my new silver army painter spray. Almost ruined the battle cannon arm, as I used it like normal GW spray, but sorted the technique (so many short sprays...).




Tomorrow should see it get rusty, and then darkened up, with my super secret method! What could it be? Prize to anyone who gets it.

Cheers
JP

First thing I did tonight was create a wet palette, using this tutorial from EonsOfBattle:

 EonsOfBattle wrote:
In this tutorial we show you how to create a wet palette and why you would want to use it. Thanks for watching!

The palette came out like this, although you can't really see anything.


I used it to keep my very watered down troll slayer orange wet, for the rust coat that went on to big guy number 2!




Also, I seem to be mainly talking to my self here, so if anyone has any ideas on how to improve the blog, that would be awesome!

Cheers
JP

Love the work sir! That rust - forget about it! It's pretty fantastic work right there.

I will be checking on your progress regularly. Wanna see how the twins come out!

Thanks for checking out my thread BTW.

Sorry lurking, in shadows, great stuff dude. Like it a lot. Interesting method for the rust. And wet palette a must for advancement in the paint department. I actually bought one and it changed everything, including saving me a fortune on paint. keep it coming, all good so far.

 Markillius08 wrote:
Love the work sir! That rust - forget about it! It's pretty fantastic work right there.

I will be checking on your progress regularly. Wanna see how the twins come out!

Thanks for checking out my thread BTW.

Cheers man. Your knights are so cool, and I definitly got close to just stealing your idea

 Camkierhi wrote:
Sorry lurking, in shadows, great stuff dude. Like it a lot. Interesting method for the rust. And wet palette a must for advancement in the paint department. I actually bought one and it changed everything, including saving me a fortune on paint. keep it coming, all good so far.

Yeah, I still have the orange wash left even now. Need more parchment paper...

On to the models. The secret for darkening up the rust is... finger painting and pencil lead!


Scrape it off into a tub, and crush up any bits you have left. (Don't do this to your favorite pencil)


Then, shake the powdered graphite around the tub, and move it all to one corner, then rub your finger around the opposite corner.


This gets messy after a while...


Then, you literally finger paint all over the model, rubbing it with your graphite covered finger. Here is a mid way through shot...


And the finished darkened metal:





Both knights are now at the same stage, so it gets detailed now... next update will see me painting tubes, and hydraulics, and making a start on the Blue-with-gold-trim parts of the skeleton. Stay tuned!

Cheers
JP

Excellent use of non-native painting devices. Love seeing the use of graphite or random household products that can save you time and tons of money. Looking good sir!

 The only jp wrote:

 livanbard wrote:
OHO I have a question.
Is there a way to mount the stubber in the right side?

Also, the first knight helmet is looking great. Will you keep the quartered pattern?

Yeah, I am fairly sure you could swap over the stubber with the shield.
JP

Thanks

Silently following, sorry about not commenting earlier, just didn't have more to add than: Great!

So here, GREAT!

Like (and will try) the rust + graphite technique soon, too.

I'd just, if I may, suggest to de-rust it a bit (some pure metallic parts and edges) and/or adding a oily touch to some of the moving surfaces (Camkierhi already mentioned it too), to make it look as still on use.

Just keep it coming.

You know, I wasn't at all convinced I wanted a knight...but having seen the rusty frameworks you have here I'm beginning to think otherwise

Fantastic, love the rust, really something I'd expect from 40k!

 Littletower wrote:

I'd just, if I may, suggest to de-rust it a bit (some pure metallic parts and edges) and/or adding a oily touch to some of the moving surfaces (Camkierhi already mentioned it too), to make it look as still on use.

Just keep it coming.

Cheers man! I'll definitely be making the hydraulics seems usable, and I've started adding a bit of non-rust bits to the skeleton (Heresy! ), just not enough to warrant an update as of yet.

 monkeytroll wrote:
You know, I wasn't at all convinced I wanted a knight...but having seen the rusty frameworks you have here I'm beginning to think otherwise

They are awesome models, really fun to build and to paint. Depending on how good they are in-game, I would consider getting a third one, once I finish these two...

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
Fantastic, love the rust, really something I'd expect from 40k!

Haha, thanks Something to do with the air pollution in the year 40000 that just rusts up the metal.

Actual updates.

Decided to try out the Vallejo chipping medium. Not sure I did it correctly. Started with a base coat of Army painter silver spray, then once dry painted on "chipping medium".


Next went over with blue army painter spray. Not sure if you can tell from the picture here, but the survace was fairly un-even and looked terribad.


Next painted it up to finished.


After this I tried to 'chip' the model, using a very stiff, cut-short old brush. It got down to the blue base coat, but I had to really scrap to get rid of the blue spray coat, and after all the work, it just looked appalling. So I tried to rectify it (Hated it so much I didn't even take a photo :( )

Thanks for the comments guys, and if anyone has any experience or knows of a decent tutorial for the chipping medium would be extremely useful.

Cheers
JP

Sounds like you were not doing it entirely correctly, firstly you might want to apply a layer of varnish over the base layer just incase you end up messing something up.

You're meant to be able to use something like a wet cotton-wool bud, a stiff brush should be fine, and rub the paint over the top of the chipping medium off. The idea is the water soaks through the top layer of paint, dissolving the chipping medium underneath and lifting the top layer of paint which is then removed.

It looks like you covered the entire thing with the stuff. You only need to paint the chipping medium where you want chips, when you paint over it, it'll look like crap ... which is fine, as thats what your removing and it makes it obvious.

Edit: Apologies if I sound a little harsh above. I had trouble with the chipping medium as well and it took me a little while to get the hang of it.

Really cool work so far on the titan, it's a really good colour scheme, titan and the krieg

 OneManNoodles wrote:
Sounds like you were not doing it entirely correctly, firstly you might want to apply a layer of varnish over the base layer just incase you end up messing something up.

You're meant to be able to use something like a wet cotton-wool bud, a stiff brush should be fine, and rub the paint over the top of the chipping medium off. The idea is the water soaks through the top layer of paint, dissolving the chipping medium underneath and lifting the top layer of paint which is then removed.

It looks like you covered the entire thing with the stuff. You only need to paint the chipping medium where you want chips, when you paint over it, it'll look like crap ... which is fine, as thats what your removing and it makes it obvious.

Edit: Apologies if I sound a little harsh above. I had trouble with the chipping medium as well and it took me a little while to get the hang of it.

Really cool work so far on the titan, it's a really good colour scheme, titan and the krieg

Cheers for the tip man, and glad you like the colour scheme, I love the blue and orange, but I may be biased

Anyway, sorry for the long time with updates. I am sure everyone on dakka was worried about me, and eagrly awaiting my return! I was just really busy with school.
Very little progress unfortunately, but it is progress that makes a big difference. I have primed all the armour plates, and using my blu-tac-fu, attached to the knights for your veiwing pleasure:






I also managed to squeeze in a 1750 game against my friend Steve's Tau. I felt I put up a decent fight for my first battle back, but, having not played a 6th edition game before, I could have done a lot better. I've got a 1850 pt game this Saturday, and if you guys want, I can take some pictures.

Comments and criticism will be rewarded?
Cheers
JP

P.S. Here is a little teaser on some other side projects... (just for you Lewis)

Looking good, that blue is vibrant at the moment, I know you dull it down, but it really pops. I will also say you are a very neat painter.

Keep it coming.

Looking forward to seeing those knights done. That rust effect looks really nice.

Your work with the rust metal effect is so good it almost seems a shame to put the amour on.
Plus I love the technique with the graphite, I'll have to try that sometime .

f2k wrote:
Looking forward to seeing those knights done. That rust effect looks really nice.

Glad you like it! And I really need to get going and make some progress!

 Camkierhi wrote:
Looking good, that blue is vibrant at the moment, I know you dull it down, but it really pops. I will also say you are a very neat painter.

Keep it coming.

Wow, I've never usually considered my painting neat. Just the size of the model males it easier Also, I agree about it popping. I'm considering not darkening it, and leaving it that colour. The spray I used was Ultramarine Blue army painter, so I'll have to buy some of whatever the new equivalent of the old citadel paint. Anyone know what the closest equivalent is called?

 hk1x1 wrote:
Your work with the rust metal effect is so good it almost seems a shame to put the amour on.
Plus I love the technique with the graphite, I'll have to try that sometime .

Thanks HK. It is good fun to do, feels like primary school and finger painting again. It takes some practise to get the right mix of pressure and softness on the model so the graphite doesn't come on too dark. Also, small fingers make it easier to get into the more hidden places!

What are people's thoughts on the armour? Light (like the spray coat, will obviously be highlighted and shaded) or dark (like the hood). Tonight should see me make some ground on the gold trim. Stay tuned!
Cheers guys
JP

Well now your Knights are spectacular ! That rusted effect with the graphite was a very clever move and is really effective too

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this blog.

Looking great!

Keep it up!

-CotW

Nah...you lost me now you've put the armour on.....

Split decision on the blue...the light blue does have a lovely pop to it, but I think I prefer the dark myself...although that's a tough call to make when just trying to visualise it. Either way it's going to look good...so, not much help there from me...

LOVE the progress!

I believe that if you're going to have a rusty undercarriage, the armor needs to be a dull light blue so it appears sun faded. Just because it wouldn't make sense to have it rusty and newly painted armor plates.

I think the highlighting is fantastic on the hood, but it just doesn't do it for me with the darkness of the blue. Regardless of what you decide though, keep it in theme as a whole and the end result will be phenomenal.

Can't wait to see more progress!