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Still rocking it with the metallics, looking really good!
Projects tend to take much longer than first anticipated, but such is life.

Also many congratulations and happy birthday to you sir!
Graduation is always a good thing. Trying to get there myself, with mixed results

Wow. There's a ton of cool stuff here. The marines are fabulous. I really like the way you have blended the different armor styles. The Stormcast are also very well done. That deep red is an amazing accent for the silver. And lastly, the old-school Warzone guy makes me smile. Great work!

The marines look great , especially love the split helmet paint scheme.

The sigmarine guys are looking excellent as well. Just jumped headlong into Shadespire as well, your guys are a true inspiration for that.

Much congratulations on getting your masters, and the retributors also look great! it took me like three tries to spell retribultors, i do not have a masters.

Happy belated birthday and congratulations on getting your Master's, it's a lot of work and completely worth the effort, trust me!

Awesome looking marines and retributors, had to catch up on a few posts but great job!

Congrats on the masters. Nice job on those stormcast, the red works really well on them

Wow, thanks for all the kind words everyone!

Ezki wrote:Still rocking it with the metallics, looking really good!
Projects tend to take much longer than first anticipated, but such is life.
Also many congratulations and happy birthday to you sir!
Graduation is always a good thing. Trying to get there myself, with mixed results

Good luck with your studies! I guess the only advice I can give is to just soldier on, there's not much else to do.. Though I know that summer's not the best time to be thinking about theses and such, so many distractions..

youwashock wrote:Wow. There's a ton of cool stuff here. The marines are fabulous. I really like the way you have blended the different armor styles. The Stormcast are also very well done. That deep red is an amazing accent for the silver. And lastly, the old-school Warzone guy makes me smile. Great work!

Thanks, I've had a lot of fun painting the models! The Warzone guy had some weird sculpting, but other than that he was an enjoyable nostalgia project.

Theophony wrote:The marines look great , especially love the split helmet paint scheme.
The sigmarine guys are looking excellent as well. Just jumped headlong into Shadespire as well, your guys are a true inspiration for that.

I'm honored! I'll definitely check out your Shadespire progress!

amazingturtles wrote:Much congratulations on getting your masters, and the retributors also look great! it took me like three tries to spell retribultors, i do not have a masters.

Haha, GW and their naming conventions!

Tyranid Horde wrote:Happy belated birthday and congratulations on getting your Master's, it's a lot of work and completely worth the effort, trust me!
Awesome looking marines and retributors, had to catch up on a few posts but great job!

Hopefully I'll get a job in my own line of work before too long!

Maharg wrote:Congrats on the masters. Nice job on those stormcast, the red works really well on them

I also think the red works, though I'll probably try purple for some future Shadespire/Underworlds SCE gang, just to differentiate them. Should work out great as well..

Happy Birthday! Did you get any plastic to add to the collection?

Nice retributors! Is that a bit of purple in the shades of their armour? It gives a good effect. Their scaley tabards look great too! Keep up the great work!

gobert wrote:
Happy Birthday! Did you get any plastic to add to the collection?
Nice retributors! Is that a bit of purple in the shades of their armour? It gives a good effect. Their scaley tabards look great too! Keep up the great work!

Thanks gobert! Didn't get any plastic, but a couple of new toys anyway: a new lense for my DSLR and a nice watch (combined graduation and b-day presents). However, I had my first payday today, so I treated myself to the Nightvault core set, which I had set as a graduation prize a long time ago! (as a side note, it was the first mini box I've bought in a year!)

And it is indeed purple on the armor. It's 1:1 Druchii Violet and Lahmian Medium mix applied to random places, more as a glaze than as a wash.

Your Revelators are awesome!

 Heretic Tom wrote:
Your Revelators are awesome!

Thank you very much, and welcome to the thread Tom!

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Oof, yet again I've let updating this thread slide.. I haven't had as much hobby time as I'd like to, especially as the weekends have been mostly booked for other things. But I haven't been completely inactive, I've made some progress painting the 40k Skaven. I've tried to keep painting them fast and loose, with varying success, but I think they're coming along nicely. Hopefully I'll get them done next week. In addition to the rats, I assembled the Nightvault minis, which you can also see in the background of the photo.

Sci fi skaven are delightful, and these guys are very good. The one with flamer is especially nice.

I briefly thought the one with the yellow hood had glorious Fabio style hair. I will try to stop picturing that however.

There is a lot of great stuff in this blog. Just found it and have had aa great time looking through it all. Keep up the good work!

amazingturtles wrote:Sci fi skaven are delightful, and these guys are very good. The one with flamer is especially nice.
I briefly thought the one with the yellow hood had glorious Fabio style hair. I will try to stop picturing that however.

Thanks as always, turtles! The flamer dude is probably my favorite too, the gladiator style eye protectors are always cool and the screaming mouth gives and impression of a crazed flamer lunatic!
The Fabio hair remark gave me a chuckle, and perhaps some ideas..

squall018 wrote:There is a lot of great stuff in this blog. Just found it and have had aa great time looking through it all. Keep up the good work!

Thank you squall, much appreciated! Thanks for stopping by.

How time flies.. But, at least I've finished the Imperial Skaven! As I've discussed the modelling previously, this post is dedicated to the painting and my thoughts on how these vermin fit the 40k universe.

Painting the Skaven was a lot of fun, and I got to try a new fun technique. I decided to go with the vanilla Cadian scheme, but make the clothes really dirty and the equipment scratched and worn. I started with the beige cloth, borrowing the idea from Jeff Vader's brilliant Nighthaunt. The dirt was spattered on with a toothbrush, and afterwards the cloth was drybrushed and washed to give highlights/shadows, and also to further the weathered look.

As I'm doing this project as a sort of a Kill Team, I wanted to further differentiate the models, so identifying them would be easier. I decided to do this by painting the hoods in different colors. I reckoned yellow would suit the leader, and red would fit the flamer. As the plain colors looked a bit boring, I thought I'd do some simple freehand designs on them. Worked nicely enough, even if they're a bit Orkish.. Good practice for the eventual Underworlds Gobbos!

I used a number of decals on these models, and it was great to see that they worked as they should, considering they were something like 10-20 years old (the "31" on one of the bases comes from a Dark Angels sheet in the Warriors of the Imperium box!). As you might have noticed, there are a couple of different designs on the shoulder pads. I'm not too familiar with the Imperial Guard identification conventions, and went mostly with what looks good to me. I also scribbled some "graffiti" on the models, to hint that the equipment might not be meant exactly new, or suitable for combat..

So what about the "fluff"? These days, as far as I know, the Imperium considers nearly all abhumans as abomination to be shot on sight. Nothing wrong with that (narratively speaking), but this was too good a modelling opportunity to pass up. Back in the third edition days, there were mentions about various abhumans serving in the Guard, and I thought that even with the contemporary Imperial policies, there would be some backwater planets out there that would find it necessary to recruit outside the "pure" human genepool. Not many men would willingly fight with the filthy vermin, but they could be given any old equipment that happened to be in the storage and made surprisingly effective fighters, especially in confined spaces.

I enjoyed this little project very much, and have plans for many more figures. I've already ordered a couple of bits for the next models, but we'll see when I get my hands on those. Anyway, my next task will be to delve back into the Underworlds, and to finally start the Nighvault models that have been sitting on my desk for almost a month!

Awesome sauce as ever in this blog! The rats look fantastic, they have a great battle worn look. I reckon they’d fit in nicely in necromunda as well as kill team, some underhive mutation of ex-guardsman or something. The rat with half his face missing is probably my favourite, real grim dark!

Very fun stuff.

Aw, he no longer looks like Fabio, ha. But they look great so the change can be forgiven.

I always figured that no matter what the "official" fluff says, one of the charms of the setting is that it's so big you can still break the rules, in regards to the abhumans issue.

Rats look good, great weathering effects

gobert wrote:Awesome sauce as ever in this blog! The rats look fantastic, they have a great battle worn look. I reckon they’d fit in nicely in necromunda as well as kill team, some underhive mutation of ex-guardsman or something. The rat with half his face missing is probably my favourite, real grim dark!

Thank you very much gobert, that's high praise! I think you're right about Necromunda, though these guys are not going to see any kind of game table any time soon.. The half-face is probably my favorite too, though originally I was a bit sceptical about the skull sculpt. After painting it my mind changed. I was actually debating whether to do Terminator-style metal skull, and to add a red bead for an eye, but I think a lowly abhuman wouldn't merit bionic parts..

bbb wrote:Very fun stuff.

Cheers bbb! And welcome to the plog!

amazingturtles wrote:Aw, he no longer looks like Fabio, ha. But they look great so the change can be forgiven.
I always figured that no matter what the "official" fluff says, one of the charms of the setting is that it's so big you can still break the rules, in regards to the abhumans issue.

Haha! I just might do a Fabio of some kind in the future!
I'm with you about the fluff. The universe is so big that almost anything goes, and you can still make it believable.

Maharg wrote:Rats look good, great weathering effects

Thanks Maharg, I'm glad that you like them.

---

I started work on the Thorns of the Briar Queen, but I'll paint just a bit further before I post WIPs.

Alright, update time. I've been painting the Thorns, and I think I've made pretty solid progress. The rags and the black ghosty bits are done, and the white ghosty bits are basecoated. After I finish the heads and the arms, there's only some detail work and the bases left to do. Fingers crossed, the warband should be done some time next week.

Nice take on the ghosts

What’s your metal recipe, I like the look of that.

Nice, they are lookin' ghostly. The rust is a good touch, i always like a bit of rust effect

The Skaven guardsmen turned out excellent!
They look like something you could buy as a modelling kit

Good work on the Thorns so far, digging the rust!

Theophony wrote:Nice take on the ghosts
What’s your metal recipe, I like the look of that.

Thank you Theo! Of course, credit where credit's due, I nicked the paint scheme from Jeff Vader. Obviously mine aren't nearly as nice..
The rusty metal on the other hand is taken from RobPaintsModels. Basecoat Mournfang Brown, sponge on Skrag Brown, Firedragon Bright and Leadbelcher, and finally a bit of edge highlighting with Runefang Steel. In tight spots and near the finished cloth I used a brush instead of the sponge.

amazingturtles wrote:Nice, they are lookin' ghostly. The rust is a good touch, i always like a bit of rust effect

Thanks! Rust is always good! It makes the grimdark that much more grim-y.

Ezki wrote:The Skaven guardsmen turned out excellent!
They look like something you could buy as a modelling kit
Good work on the Thorns so far, digging the rust!

Cheers! The Skaven are a pretty straightforward conversion, though you do need to do a tiny bit of greenstuff work. And happily both of the needed kits - Cadians and Plague Monks - are older and hence cheaper kits. Official 40k Skaven kits could be cool though!

Alright, my Nightvault collection is now officially started, as I've finished the first warband, Thorns of the Briar Queen! I actually got these done last Wednesday, but was too busy to make a post here before now.

As I was building these models I couldn't help but admire the quality of GW's new kits. Virtually no mold lines to speak of, and the dynamic poses of the models with only 1-3 pieces is astounding. Like all Nighthaunt, they are intricate, and sadly the ghost with the plank strapped to his arm lost a finger at some point. Well, he's a tortured soul, so what's one digit..

Painting the gang was mostly enjoyable, though more time consuming than anticipated. Painting the robes, the rusty metal and the black ghost bits was actually really fast, but the rest of the details (granted, there wasn't an impossible amount of them) bogged me down a bit.

As I said in the previous reply, I used schemes and recipes borrowed from hobbyists much more talented than me. The Nighthaunt scheme is from Jeff Vader, as already tried out on my Imperial Skaven. The rusty metal is from RobPaintsModels, which I also used for my Sepulchral Guard, with the crucial difference that I didn't ruin it with an all-over wash of Agrax this time. While I love the dirty robes, I think my favorite part of these models are the roses, the red spot color brings some much needed contrast to the otherwise quite drab scheme. There's a couple of details that I'm not too chuffed about: the white could've been smoother at places, and I didn't quite know what to do with the diamonds on the Queen. They're quite small details though, so I guess it's OK..

I think I'll take a short break from painting now, and get back to building a couple of models. I recently got my ebay bits package, which allows me to start working on some new conversions that I've been looking forward to.











The Thorns got a game in pretty much straight away, as we had organized an Underworlds get-together with a couple of friends this weekend. I don't get to play very often, but now that we played the Friday night and the whole Saturday, I'm good for the next six months or so Much fun was had by all, and I even managed to win a couple of times!

Great ghosts! I love their dirty robes.

Man, the three player game looks like it was a blast! And they make a good showing on the table too.

aku-chan wrote:Great ghosts! I love their dirty robes.

Cheers! It was fun doing the robes.

amazingturtles wrote:Man, the three player game looks like it was a blast! And they make a good showing on the table too.

Thanks! The three player games are great, though probably inherently a bit less balanced than two player ones. But we don't take it too seriously (it's not like we have competitive/optimized decks), it's all about socializing, catching up with each other and having a good time. I think the Thorns didn't win a game the whole weekend (they were close though), but they sure looked good doing so

Love the metals you’ve done on these guys.

Ghosts really need better laundry workers. You’d think being ethereal that they would have less muck all about.....