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 amazingturtles wrote:
No one is saying it so i'm just gonna: he's got a tiny butt.
Ok, got that off my chest, so i can now say that the painting looks great! The frog and the pool are probably my favorite parts too.

Haha, yes he does! In the 'eavy metal version it was painted darker, but I wanted the moon to shine nice and bright!
Thank you very much amazingturtles!

Where amazingturtles has only eyes for his butt ( ) I love what you have done with the toad, those eyes are looking great. All in all that sculpt is great and you've done a magnificent job painting him!

 Viterbi wrote:
Where amazingturtles has only eyes for his butt ( ) I love what you have done with the toad, those eyes are looking great. All in all that sculpt is great and you've done a magnificent job painting him!

Hey, butts are cool!
Many thanks Viterbi! I also really enjoyed the sculpt.

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I haven't had much hobby time in the last couple of weeks, but I've slowly been building a Space Marine biker squad for my Revelators mini-marines army. Here are the first two finished riders, a third will follow later.



I got these bikes from my wonderful wife as a b-day present a little while back. She doesn't really know anything about the armies or rules of the game, i.e. which units are part of what armies, which would be good for games, or what models I have in my collection already. Well, I too am not really familiar with the rules, nor do I care, and I've said to her that if she wants to get me minis, she can buy anything that she thinks looks cool. She ended up with these, as the marines looked familiar and one of my other hobbies/interests is motorcycles. I really appreciate her putting thought into this, rather than just picking the first box she sees!



I quite like the models, even though in practical terms they're a bit silly with the wide tires and low ground clearance. They look brutal though, and fit the marine aesthetic splendidly. However, there's no denying that they're getting on a bit.. Assembling the models was rather fiddly, and getting the bike halves to align satisfactorily took some work. I was also worried about the seamline in the middle of the bike, but I read a good tip on TaleofPainters: when putting the halves together, use a lot of (plastic) glue! Then press the halves together so that some of the glue goop oozes out. When it's dry, the seam can be scraped clean, leaving a smooth surface. I primed these fellas last night and the trick worked out great!

I wanted to individualize the riders a bit, so I did some light conversion/kit bashing work on them. The sarge's head is from the SM Commander kit and the fist is from a Tactical Squad. I also added a banner top from the same box to further mark him as the squad leader. Both of the riders got some pouches and grenades, and some purity seals on the bikes. The chainsword on the other bike is from the mk3 marine squad. As it's originally meant to be holstered/strapped to a backpack, it was a bit shorter than a normal Tactical Squad chainsword and already had some straps so it looks like it's actually secured in place. The idea for the sword came from photos of Imperial First bikers in an old 3rd edition SM Codex.



I wasn't happy with the stock bases, and ordered some plain 75mm oval bases from eBay. I don't think they're exactly the same shape as GW's (the oval looks like it has slight "corners"), but in the photos it seems to be okay. They also had to be washed as there was some black goo on them. So yeah, the quality's not quite up to GW standard, but okay. As they're bigger bases, I wanted to decorate them a bit more than just plain sand and the occasional skull and tuft. Of course, as some of my models have bases that are just sand, I didn't want to go too mad. The sarge got a slight "ramp" made out of cork, while the other marine got a piece of H-beam and some DIY-barbed wire. Just something to hint at a battlefield, but still keep it in the desert/wasteland style.

So where's the third squad member? He's still unassembled as I want to try something new: I recently got a package from Greenstuffworld, and with it a pack of Blue Stuff. I'm trying to make a mold of the bike wheels and copy them for terrain/basing projects! I made a couple of tries already, but wasn't satisfied just yet, so I'll try some more. The copies don't need to be perfect, but I'll try to get them as good as I can. When I get to the actual assembly, the rider will most likely be a meltagunner, but he'd require some work on arm posing, so we'll see how it comes out.

Nice job on the bikers, I know what you mean on the joints, I resorted to filler, but might go for polycement for the next 2. The minor conversions have gone well too, I’m thinking Chainsword for my sergeant assuming I’ve got one and a suitable arm spare somewhere! Out of interest, did you drill the exhausts?

 gobert wrote:
Nice job on the bikers, I know what you mean on the joints, I resorted to filler, but might go for polycement for the next 2. The minor conversions have gone well too, I’m thinking Chainsword for my sergeant assuming I’ve got one and a suitable arm spare somewhere! Out of interest, did you drill the exhausts?

Thanks! Yes, I did drill the exhausts with a 3mm bit, which was basically as big as you can use. The holes didn't come out perfect as perfect circles, most likely as there's not solid plastic behind the exhaust "covers". I think they're okay though, and painting them might further disguise the mishaps. I also considered various swords for the sarge, but ended up picking a fist so that I can add some yellow on him as well, as I did with my Tactical Squad sarge.

Lovely work on the bike bases and good to see, that the bikers are seperate from the bikes for easier painting. I fear with the new bikes, that the riders or parts of them will be on some bike parts.

The thinness of the plastic is what i was worried about. I’ll give it a go, maybe on my next bike I’ll see about drilling pre-assembly to see if I can put a back to it. Cheers!

Nice to see the old bikes getting some attention before they are replaced by their Primaris counterparts. Look forward to seeing them painted up!

 Viterbi wrote:
Where amazingturtles has only eyes for his butt ( )

(oh no, my innocent reputation!)

The bikes are great! The basing works really well and makes them look a lot more dynamic.

Viterbi wrote:Lovely work on the bike bases and good to see, that the bikers are seperate from the bikes for easier painting. I fear with the new bikes, that the riders or parts of them will be on some bike parts.

Thanks! Yeah, it's really nice that the riders are totally separated from the bikes. Easier for painting, and if you want to use the bike for a terrain project or something, there's no fuss. I took a look at the Outrider sprues and indeed it looks like subassemblies will be tougher. But maybe it's just these easy-to-build kits, perhaps there's eventually a multipart-kit with different assemby..

gobert wrote:The thinness of the plastic is what i was worried about. I’ll give it a go, maybe on my next bike I’ll see about drilling pre-assembly to see if I can put a back to it. Cheers!

No problem! After the first bike, I thought about drilling before assembly for the next one. And then I went and assembled it, forgetting the drilling. I drilled the pipes after, and just left it at that. I'm hoping that black paint and shadows take care of the empty, not really clean holes

zahnib wrote:Nice to see the old bikes getting some attention before they are replaced by their Primaris counterparts. Look forward to seeing them painted up!

Thanks, me too! I'll eventually be painting the Primaris bikes as well, as I ordered myself the Indomitus box. Those will most likely be in a different color scheme though..

amazingturtles wrote:The bikes are great! The basing works really well and makes them look a lot more dynamic.

Cheers! Didn't really consider that during build, but you're right!

This weekend I took a slight detour from finishing the bikers, to build and paint a single small model. Here's my first Warcry model: a Corvus Cabalist.



So on Friday I was browsing the local (/national) wargaming forum's trading area, and spotted someone selling quite a lot of unopened kits for half price in my city. Apparently he had excitedly bought a bit too much and was selling off things he didn't see painting in the near future. Probably a wiser man than many of us Even so, I got in touch with him and a couple of hours later a brand new Corvus Cabal box changed hands. And a few other kits as well, but more on those later..

Having bought new models and the weekend ahead of me, I had the perfect opportunity to finish a hobby bingo square that has so far eluded me: finish a model in 48 hours of acquiring it. Now, this shouldn't be too hard, as surely we're all eager to get those new models finished as soon as possible! But for one reason or another, they often go to the cupboard of unfinished models to wait for their turn, and might stay there for quite a while. Now, truth be told, I've mainly wanted the Cabal box to own the Shrike Talon and maybe some cool conversion bits, I'm not really interested in playing Warcry. I reckoned that painting one of the standard Cabalists would be good practice for the Talon and should be quick enough to paint even at my slow pace.



I built and based the model on Friday evening. I did a minor conversion too, as I'm not super fond of the kama style weapons they have. I shortened the handle a bit and used the kama's blade to give the model a knife with a hawksbill style blade, which I like quite a bit more than the original. On Saturday I primed her zenithally using rattle cans, which went a lot smoother than with the Poxwalkers. In addition to that, I washed the model with Nuln Oil and drybrushed it with White Scar, which gave me a really nicely defined and shaded starting point. I also used some Contrast and Base paints to lay initial basecoats on the model. I decided to go with the studio scheme for these, partly because I didn't have much time to mull it over, partly because the studio scheme fits the Cabal really well. I did leave the bloody throats out, as I think they're a bit silly..

(A couple of photos of the primed model: after spraying on the left and after washing/drybrushing on the right)

On Sunday I painted the rest of the model and got it finished with a good hour left before the deadline! I know I could've just left her in the "battle ready", basecoated stage, give her a simple base and call it done, but as I had plenty of time, I wanted to do it properly, and actually practice for the Shrike Talon. So I ended up covering pretty much all of the basecoats by layering and highlighting. It was a very enjoyable process though, so I don't mind. I used a similar palette as for Mollog, and again finished all colors with highlights of Pallid Wychflesh. I'm particularly happy with the beak (on the mask), I think I got the transitions down pretty well. I also like her eye, which at first at first I was going to leave black, but while I "was in the area" with my paintbrush, I thought I'd paint just a small dot of white in the corner to give an impression of a pupil. Worked well!



White there are a couple of things that could be improved and I'll probably change with the next Cabalist, I'm very happy with the model and feel that I can more or less paint the Shrike Talon and any other Cabalists with the same techniques and paints. So yeah, one more square down, which takes me quite close to getting my first completed row. Unfortunately, I won't be making a 2'x2' table in the foreseeable future, due to limited storage space and no real use either.. So it's back to working on the bikes and the "vehicle" square!

Nice work! I really like the texture you hint at with how you paint cloth. What did you use for the patches of brown on the base??

Wow! She’s spectacular! The reduced palette and finishing with Pallid wychflesh all come together to give sinister and cold feel to her. Your right to be proud of the beak because it’s fantastic!

That is one moody looking cabalist, great adaption of the stuido scheme! Excited to see your Shrike Talon, I painted my Cabal in more tropical colors, it's nice to see the contrast.

Crows! How did i not know that there was a warband with crows! I need crows.And the crow's eye looks great, that little bit of light makes it look so good.

The rest is good too of course but the crow is the best. As all crows are.

zahnib wrote:Nice work! I really like the texture you hint at with how you paint cloth. What did you use for the patches of brown on the base??

Many thanks zahnib! Some of the texture's down to stippling, some to the spray can zenithal priming. The brown patches are watered-down Mournfang Brown and Steel Legion Drab. I think it's a bit more visible on the photos than IRL, but in any case I probably should've thinned the paints down even more. As to why I painted some brown in there, it was part of my attempt to add a little color and interest to a gray base. It's the same palette I used on Mollog's base too.

gobert wrote:Wow! She’s spectacular! The reduced palette and finishing with Pallid wychflesh all come together to give sinister and cold feel to her. Your right to be proud of the beak because it’s fantastic!

Much obliged! Achieving a cold overall scheme for her was my main goal. I strayed from it a bit with the bone and the browns, but it looks like it complements the blues well.

Viterbi wrote:That is one moody looking cabalist, great adaption of the stuido scheme! Excited to see your Shrike Talon, I painted my Cabal in more tropical colors, it's nice to see the contrast.

Thanks a lot Viterbi! Yeah I remember your Cabal scheme! I like it, definitely something a bit different. Heh, before you added the green, I got a certain Howling Banshee vibe from the red and white models!

amazingturtles wrote:Crows! How did i not know that there was a warband with crows! I need crows.And the crow's eye looks great, that little bit of light makes it look so good.
The rest is good too of course but the crow is the best. As all crows are.

Hah! I knew you'd get a kick out of these crow people with crows! How didn't you know about this warband with crows?!

---

I've made a bit of progress on the bikers: the armor is now layered with Dawnstone on both the bikes and the riders. It's the most tedious part of painting my Revelators, so I'm happy Edging the armor should be relatively quick, at least with the bikes. And after that's done, it's mostly just detail work from there. I'm hoping to get these two guys done in a week!

Good progress on the bikes, mine are sat waiting to be primed and I don’t have any bases for them yet. They look cool in your grey scheme and the black fuel tanks work well too. I should probably stick a wire up in to my riders too...

 mcmattila wrote:

zahnib wrote:Nice work! I really like the texture you hint at with how you paint cloth. What did you use for the patches of brown on the base??

Many thanks zahnib! Some of the texture's down to stippling, some to the spray can zenithal priming. The brown patches are watered-down Mournfang Brown and Steel Legion Drab. I think it's a bit more visible on the photos than IRL, but in any case I probably should've thinned the paints down even more. As to why I painted some brown in there, it was part of my attempt to add a little color and interest to a gray base. It's the same palette I used on Mollog's base too.

Oh cool, I haven't experimented with zenithal undercoating yet. I remember Darren Latham going over his techniques for adding texture to cloth, sounds like a similar approach. I like the added brown! I've been trying to find ways to add a bit of colour to my bases so might borrow your approach

gobert wrote:Good progress on the bikes, mine are sat waiting to be primed and I don’t have any bases for them yet. They look cool in your grey scheme and the black fuel tanks work well too. I should probably stick a wire up in to my riders too...

Cheers! The black/darker fuel tanks were copied from the studio Ultramarines scheme, I think it gives gives a nice contrast and breaks up the light gray well. And yeah, sticking those riders on a wire surely helps holding on to them while painting!

zahnib wrote:Oh cool, I haven't experimented with zenithal undercoating yet. I remember Darren Latham going over his techniques for adding texture to cloth, sounds like a similar approach. I like the added brown! I've been trying to find ways to add a bit of colour to my bases so might borrow your approach

Borrow away!
I also remember Darren's textured cloth tutorial, I used it more closely on my Farstriders. For the Cabalist I took a quicker approach, just highlighting with a stippling motion instead of using clean lines. Easier, and gives a more interesting/fitting look for a ragged character!

 mcmattila wrote:

amazingturtles wrote:Crows! How did i not know that there was a warband with crows! I need crows.And the crow's eye looks great, that little bit of light makes it look so good.
The rest is good too of course but the crow is the best. As all crows are.

Hah! I knew you'd get a kick out of these crow people with crows! How didn't you know about this warband with crows?!

It is my shame! But now i know, and i am ready....

Colors on the bikers are looking good!

Very smooth colors on the bikers! And you gotta love the look of the two marines without their bikes, the hand position looks so weird

Lovely model that Corvus Cabalist! And your paint job gives that model justice!

Good start on the bikes also. Painting that Dawnstone must have taken a lot of patience

Beautiful Bird dude dude

Thank you all for the comments, and sorry again for taking so long to reply. I've been neglecting the forums for a while now due to real life commitments, hopefully I'll be able to post a bit more frequently from now on, both to my plog and to other dakkanauts'.

amazingturtles wrote:It is my shame! But now i know, and i am ready....
Colors on the bikers are looking good!

Cheers!

Viterbi wrote:Very smooth colors on the bikers! And you gotta love the look of the two marines without their bikes, the hand position looks so weird

Thanks! Yeah, the mini marines, especially these older ones are funny in that they look pretty good when they're completely assembled, but before that the weird proportions are very apparent!

Ezki wrote:Lovely model that Corvus Cabalist! And your paint job gives that model justice!
Good start on the bikes also. Painting that Dawnstone must have taken a lot of patience

Much obliged! Yup, it's a sweet model!
And yes, painting Dawnstone wasn't fun.. I'll say a bit more about that below.

JoeRugby wrote:Beautiful Bird dude dude

Many thanks! To be facetious, I think that's a dudette

---

This project has taken waaay longer than I would've thought, but the two bikers I built a month ago are now finished! There's still one more to build and paint for a complete squad, but I think I'll paint something else before that..



I've got a bit of a confession to make. I don't find my Revelators power armored marines much fun to paint. All the main colors - gray, yellow and gold - are more or less a struggle to paint. Well, maybe "struggle" is a wrong word, tedious would be more apt. The base paints cover well, but the layer ones are terrible. I very much like the end result, but getting there is mostly dull, very time consuming work, and I feel that I could use that time better on some other model. But I'm kind of locked in with the paint recipe now, and as I'd like to see some kind of a "finished" army at some point, I'll continue to add a unit every now and then.



And oh yeah, if you see any out of place silver spots (hopefully not) on the models, that's because the Vallejo Metal Color bottle caps are the worst! For some reason they occasionally leak while shaking them, resulting in a spray of silver droplets all over the place! This time a couple hit my models, of course in a way that required three paints to fix each splotch. I need to remember to cover the caps with a paper towel while shaking the bottles..



It wasn't all bad, of course! The detailing and light freehand work (check out the "navigator" screens below) were enjoyable, as was the basing and even edge highlighting the gray armor. I'm pretty happy with the chipping as well. The goal was to do a very light application to the bikes only and leave the riders clean, to echo the rest of my Revelators. All in all, again, I think the finished models look great and are a cool addition to my collection, even if there are one or two mistakes on them..



Another great thing is that these bikers also qualify for a couple of hobby challenges: firstly, they're my submission for Azazel's Jewel of July-August. I'll try to paint a quick character or something before the month is over for an additional entry, but yeah, we'll see how it goes.. Secondly, they count for the vehicle square in the hobby bingo. Heh, I'm really setting up those sweet bingo rows, aren't I? Hopefully I can actually follow through on at least one of them!

They may be a pain, but they turned out great! How many coats does the grey take? Would a different primer make it easier or do you already start with grey? Aside from the awesomely smooth greys, the screens on them look amazing! I’ll have to get watching some YouTube tutorials to get anywhere near that! Awesome work as usual! Looks like you need to do some scenery to get a bingo!

Those bikes are awesome! Nice work on the weathering and those nav displays are really nicely done. The Revelators scheme also looks ace! Well worth the effort I think. Also those bases are super shmick

The texture on those bikes look amazing, the scratches are marvelous. Definitely worth all the hard work for a great looking army!

gobert wrote:They may be a pain, but they turned out great! How many coats does the grey take? Would a different primer make it easier or do you already start with grey? Aside from the awesomely smooth greys, the screens on them look amazing! I’ll have to get watching some YouTube tutorials to get anywhere near that! Awesome work as usual! Looks like you need to do some scenery to get a bingo!

Many thanks gobert! The gray is first two coats of Mechanicus Standard, then a wash of Nuln Oil, then 2-4 coats of Dawnstone, followed by an edge highlight of Administratum Grey. Dawnstone needs more coats on larger flat surfaces, and the most annoying thing is trying to avoid painting in the recesses.. Someday I'll experiment on a more efficient way of painting Revelators, but it won't be with this army. And hey, I watched plenty of tutorials before painting the screens, they were my first! I also kinda tried to mix it with the "gemstone" tutorials (white dot on one corner, refracted light on the opposite corner), but this wasn't entirely successful, I think.

It does indeed seem like doing scenery and sculpting would be the fastest way to a bingo! I actually got a couple of ideas for both, so I'll just have to do them before the end of the year.

zahnib wrote:Those bikes are awesome! Nice work on the weathering and those nav displays are really nicely done. The Revelators scheme also looks ace! Well worth the effort I think. Also those bases are super shmick

Cheers zahnib! Yeah, I also like the finished models, and the time spent on painting them is mostly forgotten when it's all said and done. I'm also continuously surprised by how good the bases look with the really limited palette I use on them. Here I did add a bit of rusty metallic bits on the other base, but they blended right in with the drybrushing, just like I wanted.

Viterbi wrote:The texture on those bikes look amazing, the scratches are marvelous. Definitely worth all the hard work for a great looking army!

Much obliged Viterbi! I'm also happy with the chipping on the bikes, I think I was pretty on point with the amount - some signs of use but not ready for the junk yard. That being said, I've been thinking about the way I paint the chipping, and some things I could do to improve it a bit. Right now I sponge on dark gray and then highlight almost everything with a brush (sounds more time consuming than it actually is). This results in a somewhat uniform chipping; the placement is random, but all the chips are the same "depth". A better way could be to first sponge on the highlight color, representing the lightest scratches. Then paint dark gray (representing shadow/primer) on some of the bigger light gray dots, and maybe a little silver on some of those dark gray spots. This would simulate a greater range of "depth" on the damage.

Aye, they may be a lot of work, and not much fun, but the work clearly pays off. The gray and the yellow are all so smooth, and they play off each other so well.

Those bikers were well worth all the effort you put in. I think you're right about the chipping, the different depths will make the great paint job even better. Maybe consider a small scratch or two on the transfers as well? The areas they are on aren't that likely to get too much damage but the rear ones stand out slightly, looking a bit too neat