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Thanks guys!

 Nevelon wrote:

 carlos13th wrote:
I've been utterly disinterested in space marines for a while now but I keep checking back to see what you have done with your latest one Para. The effort you are putting in both in terms of painting and the various different painting schemes makes it far more interesting than space marines normally are. Looking forward to the next one.

Who next?



Tiger claws, Raptors and firehawks would all be interesting. As would many others.

What’s with the new-fangled picture? If you want to paint Badab, go dig up the old RT pic. With variant camo patterns.

(interesting to see how things have changed)

If you find it please share it. Would be cool to see the differences.

Here you go-
Rogue Trader era-


Present day-

 carlos13th wrote:

If you find it please share it. Would be cool to see the differences.

Normally if I need to find it, I just go downstairs. But for sharing, it’s easier to rummage around google. It’s a fairly well known pic, someone must have scanned it already.

Found it:

Yeah, I saw that while researching Badab. Some like the Fire Hawks aren't too far off, just the orange and yellow inverted, Red Scorps are pretty similar too, but that Tiger Claws scheme? You can tell it was the 80s!

Kind of tempting to try a 'modern' rendition of some of these schemes, see if I can actually make some of the more garish ones gritty and realistic, but for the sake of coherency, for this little project at least they'll all be in the regular schemes.

Some of those camo schemes are made of awesome though. You should give them a shot. Fits your style nicely.

Here's the Fire Hawk



Had to weather the hell out of him to get the orange looking halfway decent and cover up the fact the legs and JP are salvaged from ancient minis and only semi-successfully cleaned up. Went a little more orange than some versions of the scheme (it seems to vary from really bright orange to almost BA red at times) but I think that looks all right, I'm pleased enough with the mini, but I can't help but feel he doesn't hold up to the other ones... Any ideas on what's not quite worked?

Thanks for looking, any thoughts welcome!

I disagree Paradigm! Appropriately grim dark. He really has the feel of an Assault Marine that is constantly up in other peoples business pushing his armor to the limits, i like it alot!

My only complaint is that the picture in the photo gallery is too small. I can't see any details to be able to provide you with useful feedback!

Gimme a mo, I'll try and get some bigger/better pics!

lovely stuff but Gits is on the money. Photo is a touch small - you'll fix it right up no doubt

On the topic of pictures:

I’ve been experimenting myself with that photo program, and having some fun with it. In the past when taking pictures of my minis (mostly for your monthly competitions) I was just doing 360 pictures to show all the angles. When assembling pictures for a composite, I think that’s not the best idea. You obviously want one or two “overall” shots to encompass and convey the figure. the rest should showcase the best parts of the angle.

An example (spoilered as not to spam your thread with my pics)

All those pics started life as full body shots. The lower left and right are actually zooms of the same one, just focused down to showcase different parts of the mini. But when I was taking the picture that the plasma pistol is cropped from, I explicitly took that angle to showcase it. So why not just show it off? The overall pic shows the mini well enough, it’s just not the best pistol shot.

For your Fire Hawk, you have two very similar back shots. It’s a nice angle, but I would do a tight zoom on the JP for one of them. Pick your best chainsword shot, show it off.

I’m not going to claim to be an expert, but I have been thinking about this a bit recently. YMMV.

This pic should be bigger:


Any better?

@Nev: Yeah, I do need to experiment a little more to find the best way of displaying the minis. Still trial and error on size, how far I can zoom in before I lose focus, colour balance, that kind of thing.

 Paradigm wrote:
@Nev: Yeah, I do need to experiment a little more to find the best way of displaying the minis. Still trial and error on size, how far I can zoom in before I lose focus, colour balance, that kind of thing.

I think a lot of that depends on your camera. Obviously if you take higher quality pics, you can blow things up more before the start to come apart. I’m using an older point and click camera (Canon Powershot S95), but even phone cameras are getting to be pretty good quality these days.

As a benchmark, the photo I used for the plasma pistol close up is about 1.3 megs, and 1999 × 2377 if iPhoto is to be believed.

Better, though still not zoomable in the gallery.

I don't see anything wrong with him really He's dirty, gritty, tarnished... just like his base, so that's a perfect match. The only thing that comes to mind is that there aren't any points of contrasting color on the model (or is it complimentary? I can never keep those straight) so the monotone of the piece might be what's getting to you. It wouldn't need much... just a point here or there. I'm thinking a nice glow from the jump engines (doesn't have to go beyond the mouth of the jets) and a point of whitish blue from the pilot light on the flamer.

Nice legion of the damned, er, I mean fire hawks assault marine.

You're on fire!!

Looks good

I like the pose on that Fire Hawk! Paint looks good too, but the pose is what sells it for me!

Nice. Is that a bit of sprue he's launching off?

EDC

The pose is fantastic. Really dynamic and helps a potentially top heavy model look like he can move quickly.

I agree with Gitsplitta that it may be the colours all flow together hence giving a fairly "flat" end product. This of course is a fantastic result for pure realism as even though marine colours are a heraldry system constant war and damage would tarnish any paint to a point this guy is at. I like the look and think he is one of the most brutal examples of an assault marine I have seen.

But for the love of all that is holy please teach him to put a helmet on.....

Thanks fellas!

@Archer: I am considering switching out for a helmet on him actually, my work on his head isn't stellar and might be what's bugging me about the mini. Only trouble is it means more orange, so I lose the focal point which might throw the composition off even more.

@EDC: No, what makes you say that? It's clearly some very carefully sculpted fallen metal that only looks like I was too lazy to do anything more than glue some sprue to the base!

I like him. My favourite part of the mini is the story told. He is so badass that he has buried his opponent up to the neck rather than killing him .

I am liking the variety of Marines. Is it to an end or are they just primarily display pieces? Also any commissions lately?

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
He is so badass that he has buried his opponent up to the neck rather than killing him .

I am liking the variety of Marines. Is it to an end or are they just primarily display pieces? Also any commissions lately?

And now I can never in good conscience put a discarded helmet on a base ever again....

The 'end' such as it is is just to have a mini for each Chapter that fought in the Badab war, for no reason other than they'll look good on a shelf, have a nice unifying theme and give me scope to practice and learn a wider range of colours and techniques (having basically done the same things on more or less every mini across the HH army).

No commissions lately, I've got methebest's Geckos to do for the volunteer painting thingymagig, and will hopefully be doing some more Orks for kb_lock's Dakka Klan project, but in terms of actual commission stuff, no luck in recent months. Might see about dropping my prices again, although even when I went down to about half price on HH stuff back when BaC came out, I had no interest, so I may just pack it in at some point... Mind you, it's not costing me anything or taking any effort to keep my site up, so I guess I'll just leave it there and if I get any interest, awesome, if not then it's no loss...

Hoping to finish off the first Gecko tonight/tomorrow, maybe get the last Court of Owls guy done this weekend as well, though I do have an essay assignment I'm eager to get cracking on, so we'll see, that could eat up most of my weekend...

Got the first of the Geckos done now, hopefully the second will follow quite quickly.



Reasonably happy with it, hopefully methebest who it's for is too.

Took the HH force for a spin this evening, ended up playing the same guy I fought last week, again with Necrons, and again lost, this time 4-3 on Kill Points. If my Techmarine had hit anything other than a couple of Warriors who immediately got Ghost Arc'd back up, things might have been different, he sent 3 shots in a row at an Annihilation Barge and fluffed either the scatter or the Pen roll each time, leaving it sitting on 1HP and immobilised for most of the game! Still re-learning how to play, and trying to take in the changes from when I last played regularly in early 6th. Need to get back into the habit of being more ballsy (for want of a better term) with my threatening units like Termies and Dreads, who spent a few turns hidden behind a bunker and contributing nothing, if I'd pushed forward they might have taken a little more damage, but also dealt some more. Meanwhile, I need to get the hang of my Vet Tactical Squads, they're competent all-rounders but I keep forgetting to give them the support they need to do much meaningful, against Crons the way they are now, Bolters just aren't cutting it... I need more firepower.

As and when I get that Ad Mech starter, I might see about mixing them up a bit into counts-asing as one of the 30k-flavour Mechanicum forces to cover that shortfall. The Dominus is oretty much a straight swap for an Archmagos, anyone familiar with the HH Mechanicum lists enough to suggest good counts-as profiles for the Skitarii and Dunecrawler models? Past that, I'm not sure what to add. Another Tactical Squad or two gets more more bodies, but don't offer anything not already in the list (And I don't really fancy painting up another 20 standard Bolter Brothers), Support Squads strike me as a bit too Glass Cannony, I love the idea of Breachers but they're hardly worth the extra points outside of Zone Mortalis, and Assault Squads in 30k are just so expensive for what they offer... I guess the answer that's staring me in the face is tanks, tanks, tanks, I just hate painting them and really, running them. Might see about getting my spare Rhinos painted up in Legion colours, they're not doing much else at the moment after all, but that solves the mobility issue but not the firepower one... Anyone with 30k knowledge got any ideas? Still not looking for anything competitive, just something that can kill stuff a little more effectively.

Anyway, that's enough ramble for one update! Thanks for looking, any thoughts welcome!

You kick these guys out fast. I was gonna comment on the Star Phantom and find these other guys too. They all look great as always. Have you thought of building an army? I think any chapter you pick will look great with your technique.

 Paradigm wrote:
Ta mate.

Quick question for you guys; what's your favourite 40k Chapter? I am currently assembling a Marine, purely as something to paint after finished the game-based army project, and I really want to see just how good I can make a basic-jsh PA marine look. I don't really have any Chapter in mind, so I'm throwing it out to you, what Chapter do you want to see me tackle as a one-off? Preferably something I haven't done before, so most of the First Founding Chapters are out (apart from the Scars, but white is still an 'aaaarrrrgh' scheme for me! ), but aoart from that, anything goes.

The build isn't finished yet, so if it's a Chapter that needs certain features/embellishments on the mini itself then that's doable.

During the RT era - Ultramarines (RT-style, so quite different to now)

During 3rd - Mentor Legion

(yeah, I've been away for most of a week!)

I really like the work you've been doing on these Badab War models. If I can make one suggestion though - get hold of a pack (or a few packs) of flat shields and practice, practice, practice your freehand. Straight lines, skulls, giant eyeballs, demon/orc/ogre faces, numerals - both Roman and Arabic), heraldic devices, Greek letters. I love the look of your Howling Griffon - it's honestly one of my absolute favourite models that you've produced, but the wonky II on his left pad keeps bothering me (also the lack of sharp end-lines on the Red Scorpion's knee stripe. The thing is that they wouldn't bother me on most people's models, but they do on yours. There's a reason for that, though - I know that the weathering covers a lot of that sort of thing, but I also know that with a bit of practice, you'll be able to achieve straight lines - and then way more for all of these kinds of markings.

It's been awhile since I've stopped by here and it looks like I've missed some awesome work. You've done a great job with your marines, and the red scorpion really stands out to me. Also glad to hear you're getting some games in again.

Keep it up. Look forward to seeing more.

My favourite chapter are the Dark Angels. The background, colours, Ravenwing, Deathwing, Cypher and too much to mention all add up to an amazing chapter. And yet I have never painted them. I think a lot is tied to the original Dark Angel Captain model, such an iconic sculpt.

That Gecko is looking cracking Para. Really nice work. Reminds me that I need to get cracking on that chimera fig when I get back to SK

If you don't like tanks how about some Rapiers?