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The armor is great, but those cloaks are fantastic.

That armour is looking really good! I'll second gobert's request for the recipe!

Lt Varras looks great. Scheme is crisp and bright and skin/face looks good.

Wow, thank you all very much for the amazing response! Sorry it's taken so long for me to reply (starting to look alarmingly like a trend)..

Maharg wrote:A very educational visit for me this time. Interesting to see the GW skin tones on your latest model (great paint job by the way) - I recently got them but haven't got round to using them, good to see they work well.
I'm also painting the farstriders at the moment, and hadn't noticed the fur cloaks go round the front of the model until I saw yours. I like the aged look you've gone for on these, I think it's a better loo for them than the normal clean approach, wondering if I need to change mine up a bit now...
Thanks for posting the photography link, I've just bought a DSLR but have no idea how to use it properly, that guide will save reading through many, many pages of instructions!

That's great to hear, I like to help out if I can! The small bits of cloak on the front of the Farstriders are pretty easy to miss, nearly happened to me as well! I wouldn't change your gang as you've already done them, just get another SCE warband and paint them more weathered

Viterbi wrote:Farstriders look really cool, that muted gold sets a nice atmosphere and the fur cloaks are great. Excited to see how you'll finish the models.

Me too! Hopefully not much longer now!

Ezki wrote:Liking the gold, good job!
Sometimes figuring out the color scheme is the hardest part of a project.

It certainly is!

aku-chan wrote:Great capes!

Cheers!

Theophony wrote:The armor is great, but those cloaks are fantastic.

Much appreciated!

The Riddle of Steel wrote:Lt Varras looks great. Scheme is crisp and bright and skin/face looks good.

Thanks a lot!

gobert wrote:Sweet work on their golds, very ancient looking! Care to share the recipe?

zahnib wrote:That armour is looking really good! I'll second gobert's request for the recipe!

Of course! The recipe is actually GW's brass recipe with added Nihilakh Oxide. I was inspired by a Minotaurs tutorial on From the Warp, and mostly followed it but used the new GW colors instead. The whole process was like this:

Basecoat Warplock Bronze
Shade Agrax Earthshade (I don't know if this had much/any effect in the end)
Overall wash of 1:2 Nihilakh Oxide : Lahmian Medium mix. I didn't paint it on the eye sockets though, didn't want glowing eyes.
Heavy drybrush of Warplock Bronze, which cleans up most of the NO and brings back shine. I might've gone just a bit overboard, as usual, but I didn't want heavy oxidation so the subtle look is fine.
Drybrush of Brass Scorpion, top-down strokes only.
Light drybrush of Runelord Brass, top-down strokes only on head/shoulders/chest/knee guards.

I want to give one more shoutout of "great" to the cloaks! And to the varras guy. I've still got my macragge stuff around here somewhere, most of it still waiting for paint...

Would you mind sharing the recipe for the cloaks as well? Just completed all nine pages - very nice work and well worth it.

Thanks for sharing the gold recipe, really nice application of it. I might give it a crack on my Ultramarines when I get back to them.

amazingturtles wrote:I want to give one more shoutout of "great" to the cloaks! And to the varras guy. I've still got my macragge stuff around here somewhere, most of it still waiting for paint...

Thanks turtles! Heh, it took me quite a while to get to the Macragge box as well!

Arakasi wrote:Would you mind sharing the recipe for the cloaks as well? Just completed all nine pages - very nice work and well worth it.

Many thanks Arakasi, and welcome to the blog! I'm glad you're enjoying it. As for the cloaks, I'll do my best to try and memorize all the paints I used, as I didn't write them down. My reason for this is that with an organic, natural material like fur the exact colors aren't vital, so if I'll do this again I'll just grab some colors that seem like they could work, like I did here. But anyway, here are the colors and my "process" as I recall:

Hope this helps!

 zahnib wrote:
Thanks for sharing the gold recipe, really nice application of it. I might give it a crack on my Ultramarines when I get back to them.

No problem, always happy to help! Looking forward to seeing how it works on those Ultras!
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The Farstriders are now done, but I still have to take the photos. Should be able to post them tomorrow!

Awesome - you are a star - thank you!

 Arakasi wrote:
Awesome - you are a star - thank you!

No problem!

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And my Shadespire collection grows by yet another warband! Here are the Farstriders! That makes six finished gangs, and two more to go to complete the first season of Underworlds.



Now, to be honest these could’ve been finished a lot sooner, had I not bought myself Hades from Steam. I’ve sunk so many hours into it during the last month that had I used them all painting, I’d probably have my Shadespire collection finished right about now.. It’s a pretty good game though!

Anyway, the Farstriders. As you could see from my WIP pic, I decided to change my default SCE color scheme to something else for this group. At first I toyed with the idea of going with the box art golden boys, but then I felt that I needed to change it a bit to make it mine. I thought I'd just change the blue to red, but then I decided to change the gold as well, to a more weathered looking brass. This was basically the Space Marine Minotaurs scheme, and I finally got to follow a tutorial on FromTheWarp which I had come across ages ago. Well, loosely speaking. I used Citadel paints and their brass triad, just adding verdigris effects before all the drybrushing. I've used Nihilakh Oxide a couple times before, and have been a bit unhappy with the results, thinking that the paint went on too opaque, even with 1:1 thinning with medium. This time I diluted the wash even further, to 1:2, and think that it looks good to me (as long as I only go over areas once). Well, I erased most of the verdigris with the drybrushing anyway, so it didn't really matter even if I put too much on.



My favorite part of the models to paint were the capes. As you might have noticed, I'm a bit of a sucker for differentiating my warband models in some way, and here I decided on making the capes in different colors. I used around five base colors for the initial pattern in each cape, which I then washed with different washes and drybrushed them to finish them off. While painting the initial pattern, I mixed the paints on the borders to achieve a smoother transition, either by mixing an intermediate color on the palette or by wetblending on the model. (See my last post for more detail on the recipes.)

There are a couple of things I'm not totally happy about on the models. One is that I probably should've pushed the highlights on the reds a bit more, as compared to the black leather bits they look a bit flat. Speaking of red, with these models I tried to make the reds on the topknot, pauldrons and the loincloth(?) a bit different, and brighter on top to draw attention there. Success, I think? I'm also not sure about the color choice on the bird: I tried to mimick a golden eagle, but brown and white doesn't really stand out from the brass armor and white cape. But these are considerations for future models, I'm calling these ones done.



Last but not least, I'm claiming a square on the hobby bingo: a team painted specifically for a skirmish game. Seems like the year has started well on the bingo front, one month down and two (/three) squares completed! If I can keep this up, I'll be finishing the whole board before the end of the year! (Yeah, fat chance..

Farstriders look awesome! Those are some nice rich reds, it works really well with the bronze armour

Nice work! I've got to love the hawk of course, GW could do real business with me if the sold all the little animals from these various sets seperately.

Looking really really good!
I like the bird, he pops out so nicely. And the metallics are good as usual.

Feeling you, as I spent most of my winter holidays playing video games when I could have been painting

What the f... I noticed that my Farstriders post was for some reason cut short, missing a lot of text and photos. Hopefully it all shows up now..

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zahnib wrote:Farstriders look awesome! Those are some nice rich reds, it works really well with the bronze armour

Much obliged, I think so too!

amazingturtles wrote:Nice work! I've got to love the hawk of course, GW could do real business with me if the sold all the little animals from these various sets seperately.

Cheers! Haha, I knew that the bird would be your favorite! Have you checked bits sellers / eBay for the individual animals and critters? Might be somewhat expensive per model, but not as much as buying whole kits.

 Ezki wrote:
Looking really really good!
I like the bird, he pops out so nicely. And the metallics are good as usual.
Feeling you, as I spent most of my winter holidays playing video games when I could have been painting

Thank you very much! Good to hear that you can separate the bird from the rest of the model, I was a bit worried Regarding the metallics, The steel colors on the weapons are actually something new: I got myself two pots of Vallejo Metal Color paints, and used them here. So far I'm really impressed! I'll be experimenting with them a bit more with my next model really soon, I'll probably write something more about them then.

And I think as long as we're having fun it's all good, whether it's miniatures or video games (or whatever). We can have many hobbies! No reason to beat yourself up too much!

Great work on the far striders, those cloaks really are fantastic. Not just the fur side, I like how the highlights seem to match the Nihilakh Oxide. The blends on their top knots and shoulder pads are just

Looking forward to see where you go next!

 mcmattila wrote:

Cheers! Haha, I knew that the bird would be your favorite! Have you checked bits sellers / eBay for the individual animals and critters? Might be somewhat expensive per model, but not as much as buying whole kits.

I should! If i could find just the little gryph hound from the warpriest set alone... man i would never stop

 gobert wrote:
Great work on the far striders, those cloaks really are fantastic. Not just the fur side, I like how the highlights seem to match the Nihilakh Oxide. The blends on their top knots and shoulder pads are just
Looking forward to see where you go next!

Thanks gobert! I'm glad you noticed the highlights on the black, I did think about them matching with the NO! And here's a sneak peek of what I'm currently working on:



The colors are a bit off, as is the way for my WIP pics taken with a phone, but it gives you some idea.. I still have to paint his face/skin and the base, and add some freehand details and weathering.

Always good to see one of the old Imperial nutters. The Stormcast are superb, as well.

I love that old priest model and you're doing it justice so far. Farstriders are really good, they look great with the dirtier grimy scheme. Top stuff

Loving the robe on the priest, the highlighting is really great, even if you say the photo doesn't show the real colors.

youwashock wrote:Always good to see one of the old Imperial nutters. The Stormcast are superb, as well.

It really is! He (along with many other Inquisition models) has been a bucket list model for me for the longest time.

Maharg wrote:I love that old priest model and you're doing it justice so far. Farstriders are really good, they look great with the dirtier grimy scheme. Top stuff

Thanks, he's one of my favorites as well. I think the more weathered look suits the Farstriders, they're supposed to be scouts after all!

Viterbi wrote:Loving the robe on the priest, the highlighting is really great, even if you say the photo doesn't show the real colors.

Thanks, I'm very satisfied with them also! My goal was to try and push the highlights and contrast more than I usually do, and am pretty happy with the result. I might add some more shadows, but we'll see..

He's got a lot of personality, that's for sure! And a chainsaw, which is a personality in its own

 amazingturtles wrote:
He's got a lot of personality, that's for sure! And a chainsaw, which is a personality in its own

Thanks! Now with a face, hopefully he's got even more personality! And the chainsaw's got some more too!

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Alright, I got the priest finished last night. That's another bucket list model done!



I actually had a hard time finding info or a picture of the studio paintjob of this lunatic (maybe someone can help me out here?). The model's tab said it's from 2002, but even with a couple catalogues from the era I couldn't find an official image of him. Rules-wise, I don't know which faction he belongs to these days, but I'm guessing Sisters of Battle. Not that it matters too much, it's just an awesome model! I've wanted it in my collection for a long time, and after seeing Heretic Tom's awesome (and growing!) collection of Imperial Cult miniatures the temptation just grew too strong. I bought the model from eBay and it arrived around Christmas.

My goal with the model was to achieve a "blanchean" color scheme, with mostly warm palette, a lot of red and some classic motifs like the checker pattern. I also wanted to try and push my skills on certain areas, as well as try out new things. The main things were the red robes - I wanted to push the contrast by shading with purple and highlighting all the way to orange; and the face - adding a bit more color than I've previously done. I also tried painting marble on the base, and experimented with some new metal paints.



There's not much to say about the red itself, but painting it was surprisingly fast and I really like the result. I got to say though, that it's amazing how much each successive highlight, or the final details, add to models. Each little dot and hash adds so much to the final model, and as you're always painting smaller and smaller areas, it takes almost no time at all! Looks like the law of diminishing returns does not apply to miniature painting.. Case in point, I painted the face first as I normally would (base/wash/layer/highlight), but then added some thinned down washes below his eyes (purple) and nose/cheeks (crimson), as well as a couple of lines to his lower lip to imply cracks. A lot more character with very little effort!

Now, the metallics. I recently stumbled on an arts/crafts store that stocked some Vallejo Metal Color and bought myself two pots. I had heard good things about them from Vince Venturella (as in, they're the only metallics he's using), and I can confirm that they're totally worthy of the praise. So thin and smooth, but the coverage is still unbelievable. I actually already used them on the Farstriders, but thought that I needed to experiment further to say anything. With the chainsaw blade I got to do some rudimentary wetblending, which works pretty well. I'm definitely getting some more Metal Color pots in the future, and changing to them instead of GW's steel paints.



I wanted the preacher to have a thematic base, and what could be a better fit than a crumbling chapel? I cut down some thin plasticard to make the stone tiles, and glued down a few patches of sand so that the base wouldn't look too sterile. I was a bit unsure about the skull at first, as it's a bit bigger scale than the preacher, but in the end I really wanted it there and just called it a space marine skull! The tiles got a marble effect following an old WHTV tutorial, and I added a roman numeral on the skull for a bit of extra detail. This is something that I've wanted to do for ages, as a reference to some amazing old pieces of 40k art such as this one. To finish the model off and tie it to the base I drybrushed and stippled some bone color on the robes/parchment/base, which was as harrowing as ever, but seemed to work as it always has.

As has thankfully been the case with all my other models this year, I can claim a square in the hobby bingo with this one as well. I'll take the "model from a faction that I don't already own any painted minis for". Although I'm not exactly sure which faction this model belongs to!

Lovely mini and lovely writeup - much appreciation for taking the time to share both.

Excellent work, really tempted to get that model myself

There's a picture of it in the "Forces of the Imperial Inqisition Collector's Guide". Yours does look better

The priest looks great! Thanks for sharing your tips as well, I appreciate them a lot.

The priest looks awesome mcmattila! Those inquisition/deamonhunter models are the bee's knees, so much character. Nice work Viterbi on finding the image

Great job you’ve done on the preacher! The marble base worked really well as did the purple shadow and orange flecked highlights on the cloak.

What’s next? Diorama or eternal spell?

Arakasi wrote:Lovely mini and lovely writeup - much appreciation for taking the time to share both.

Thank you very much! It means a lot to me that you like the writing as well. I like to write it, but it's good to know someone's reading too

Viterbi wrote:Excellent work, really tempted to get that model myself
There's a picture of it in the "Forces of the Imperial Inqisition Collector's Guide". Yours does look better

Thanks! If you get the chance, I can recommend the model. And many thanks for the pic! So many cool models there.. But yeah, I like my version of the priest better too!

Pomander Cask wrote:The priest looks great! Thanks for sharing your tips as well, I appreciate them a lot.

Cheers! No problem, good to hear that my scribblings help someone!

zahnib wrote:The priest looks awesome mcmattila! Those inquisition/deamonhunter models are the bee's knees, so much character. Nice work Viterbi on finding the image

Thanks a lot! You're right, there's so many cool Inquisition models I'd like to get my hands on.

gobert wrote:Great job you’ve done on the preacher! The marble base worked really well as did the purple shadow and orange flecked highlights on the cloak.
What’s next? Diorama or eternal spell?

Much appreciated!
Heh, there's actually one other square I've already completed (more on that soon). Completing the diorama and the eternal spell squares might take a bit of time, but thankfully I have more than 10 months to do them! I've some ideas for a diorama, but I've got a bit of problem with the spells/abilities, as I don't play the game(s), so I'm not too familiar with them. I'll have to do some research, but I'm confident that I can come up with something to claim the square sooner or later.

He looks excellent! And of course, congratulations on cheking off another box! I'm trying that bingo thing now too, so thank you for showing that it exists!