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Hi Dakka,

I’m fresh to posting to this forum, although I have been lurking for a couple of years ogling over many plogs. In the last three years, since getting back into painting, I can honestly say I’ve only really painted about 5 different models but I thought I would create my own plog to document my own (tediously slow) progress on my first army.

The humble advice from some of the incredible painters on Dakka is the real reason for doing this but as none of my friends really understand Warhammer it is also nice to share some of my work. So please, comment and critique away, I’ve learnt a lot reading the advice on this forum.

I’ll begin by saying that I’ve tried painting marines and I honestly didn’t enjoy it. I discovered that I really enjoyed painting grim colours, rust, metal and wood. Its a little bit obvious that I would therefore be drawn straight towards the AdMech/Skitarri route.

I will finally admit that I was largely inspired by my huge crush on the Januine’s AdMech plog ‘Of Knights and Mechs’ and I really hope they don’t mind me so outlandishly basing my colouring off of his design. Seeing his work enthused me to begin my own AdMech army. (By the way, Januine, how do you make all your colours look so smooth?!)

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So I started with a Dominus.

I wanted the figure to be dark and menacing – the old rags hanging from its back to be basically colourless from soot and age that now cling to it. The actual mechanisms that make up its skeleton were largely kept intact and were a lot cleaner than the rusty armour on its back.

















Thanks for looking!

Archie

I like how you think about what you want your model to portray, it does look old and creaky. If you get a whole army looking like that on the table that will be a very pretty, flavourful sight.
I can't speak for Januine of course and am not half the painter he is, but the road to smooth colours is generally multiple layers of properly thinned paint.

 Sgt. Oddball wrote:
I like how you think about what you want your model to portray, it does look old and creaky. If you get a whole army looking like that on the table that will be a very pretty, flavourful sight.
I can't speak for Januine of course and am not half the painter he is, but the road to smooth colours is generally multiple layers of properly thinned paint.

That's very kind, Sgt.

I was really worried when the first coats went onto the armour and cloak; it looked so dreary and colourless I thought the end creation would just look rubbish. Thankfully I think there is just enough colour on there now to make it sort of work.

I definitely need to learn to thin my paints better then. At the moment my thinned paints tend to pool or leave streaks! I'll keep practice thinning on different surfaces. Thank you!

A very nice start to your Ad Mech, as I have said elsewhere Januine gives us something for us all to aspire to.

I think the Dominus looks great and is suitably weathered and distressed.

A tiny piece of advice blog wise, unspoiler some of the images as people often do not bother to click on the tags. After all it is your page.

What do you plan to paint next?

I love the look of Ad Mech. Watching with interest.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
A very nice start to your Ad Mech, as I have said elsewhere Januine gives us something for us all to aspire to.

I think the Dominus looks great and is suitably weathered and distressed.

A tiny piece of advice blog wise, unspoiler some of the images as people often do not bother to click on the tags. After all it is your page.

What do you plan to paint next?

Thank you, Thraxes! I was just admiring your Alpha Legion not an hour ago! Absolutely fantastic models.

I've taken your advice and unspoilered the first couple of images. If I'm honest, I've seen so much negativity towards photos which are too large and crash tablet versions of the site, etc. that I just sort of went for it with the spoilers!!

I have some destroyers and some robots in the post. Thinking I'll have some heavy fire-power. Wondering how the paint scheme will work on such smooth, large metallic sections - they'll look particularly rusty though once I'm finished.

Kastelan Robots? Yes! I loved painting mine up. I think those and the Destroyers will look great all rusted up, after all they are some pretty old equipment.

Have you considered highlighting the various lenses on the Dominus? Plenty of tutorials out there if you need any advice.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
Kastelan Robots? Yes! I loved painting mine up. I think those and the Destroyers will look great all rusted up, after all they are some pretty old equipment.

Have you considered highlighting the various lenses on the Dominus? Plenty of tutorials out there if you need any advice.

Have you posted any pictures of your Kastelan robots on Dakka? ~ he says going to look anyway ~ They look like such an amazing kit and exactly what I think of when I think of ancient robots coming to life under a thick layer of dust. I need to get reading into the fluff a little bit to really get an idea of this army.

That's a really good idea. At the moment I'm only working using a couple of brushes as I only pulled my old painting supplies out of the cupboard. The smallest one I have is pretty big... I'll need to buy some more and then maybe I can get working on the lenses. I'll definitely go looking for some advice though as I can't get it round my head how painted lenses work.

Nice start. I like how dirty your dominus looks. I see so many ad each armies in this ridiculously bright color scheme and I always think how unlike the lore that is. This hews truer to the fiction and I appreciate that.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Nice start. I like how dirty your dominus looks. I see so many ad each armies in this ridiculously bright color scheme and I always think how unlike the lore that is. This hews truer to the fiction and I appreciate that.

I agree. The clean-cut 'Eavy Metal one being shown at GW just doesn't look right - it's beautiful but it just doesn't look right. As I said, I saw Januine's blog and just thought "that. Now that is AdMech".

Thank you for your kind words!!

If you're using over-sized brushes that may also explain some of the pooling when you thin your paints (though it might also just be too thin, hehe). You'll get better just by painting more stuff though, looking forward to your next stuff.

 Sgt. Oddball wrote:
If you're using over-sized brushes that may also explain some of the pooling when you thin your paints (though it might also just be too thin, hehe). You'll get better just by painting more stuff though, looking forward to your next stuff.

My standard brush is way too big as proven to me on these destroyers.

As a little teaser, introducing the first of two destroyers to roll out of the dusty warehouse.

There is a lot of detailing that will still need to be added but he's coming along nicely. Despite the 'destroyer' variation having little to no armour in the fluff, I have designed these lot to have an armoured chassis as I think it looks better. The armour still needs work as it was only added last night in a rush - some ink and weathering will make it fit better into the decaying theme.

Also, apologies for the portrait layout of the photos!

Looking great, good take on the the ragged and weathered look

Hard to tell you'd "only really painted about 5 different models",

Maybe the plasma barrel could be drilled? There might be an odd mold line here or there or a tiny gap on the Magos that escaped attention when putting it together, but that might just be me, too!

Looking forward for more!

Splendid stuff, wonderfully gritty and atmospheric!

If you're looking for some brushes to practice fine details, you can get a pack of 3-4 very small brushes for about £3 in a craft store, when you're starting out that's far better than buying an expensive £20 fine brush and damaging it figuring out fine detail work. To be honest, I still do all my work with cheap brushes like that!

Very nice stuff so far! It is nice to see mechanicus (evil or good ) painted in different colors other than red

Littletower wrote:Looking great, good take on the the ragged and weathered look

Hard to tell you'd "only really painted about 5 different models",

Maybe the plasma barrel could be drilled? There might be an odd mold line here or there or a tiny gap on the Magos that escaped attention when putting it together, but that might just be me, too!

Looking forward for more!

Thank you for your comments and advice! I hadn't noticed I hadn't drilled the plasma barrel!

I really struggle with the mold lines at the moment and it's something I definitely need to work on; the plasma gun especially has some horrendous mold lines still. I either shave off too much of the detail or not enough!!

Paradigm wrote:Splendid stuff, wonderfully gritty and atmospheric!

If you're looking for some brushes to practice fine details, you can get a pack of 3-4 very small brushes for about £3 in a craft store, when you're starting out that's far better than buying an expensive £20 fine brush and damaging it figuring out fine detail work. To be honest, I still do all my work with cheap brushes like that!

Thank you! I'll go take a look at slightly cheaper options. I also need to find out what the hell I'm doing wrong with my brushes; you'd think I was mistreating them considering how quickly they fall apart.

Ustrello wrote:Very nice stuff so far! It is nice to see mechanicus (evil or good ) painted in different colors other than red

That's what I loved about the Mech fluff; they were these archaic entities working away on their machines before coming out to defend their world. They really do suit that dark and gritty look rather than the bright colours imo.