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Mr Steve making steady progress on many precious things I see! I'm liking that apothecary terminator- they're the lifeblood of the Chapter so terminator armour makes alot of sense to me! Realise he's 1st Company of course.

That Tyranid Warrior looks good! Liking the blues on the chitin, nice work there.

You should read the Asimov Foundation series by the way- and thank you for the tip re. Lensman! It's weird, that's the second recommendation for that series I've seen in a week!

Evening all, been a productive little period for me, although I’m not going to manage to finish the full squad this month, I have 8 veterans completed and ready to be based, which is great progress for me, the other two I’ve started blocking in colours so hopefully won’t take too much to complete. Although I feel that is wishful thinking given I spent two hours painting today, and I would struggle to explain what I did, the misses says small details and I’m inclined to believe, but it doesn’t feel like it should take that long to do, I suppose I was working on four models at once so ….

I’m happy with how they have turned out (the photos are from my phone so apologies on the quality and lighting), I realise I do need to do 6 backpacks now, and that is a minor miscalculation on my part but never mind. I know they aren’t exactly codex complaint with the gold trim rather than white, but they definitely have the veteran, 1st company, vibe going for them.

 Ragsta wrote:

Mr Steve making steady progress on many precious things I see! I'm liking that apothecary terminator- they're the lifeblood of the Chapter so terminator armour makes alot of sense to me! Realise he's 1st Company of course.

That Tyranid Warrior looks good! Liking the blues on the chitin, nice work there.

You should read the Asimov Foundation series by the way- and thank you for the tip re. Lensman! It's weird, that's the second recommendation for that series I've seen in a week!

Cheers Ragsta, trying to keep a few things going to prevent blue (UM) burn out, it helps that the others are small combat patrols that I’m trying to complete, so relatively few models. I think the Eldar, Tyranids and Tau all have about 20 models left to do to complete their various patrols (maybe 30 each at a push if I want to get all the of the models I have done). It is nice dancing between them and playing with other colour schemes. The Tyranid Warrior was fun to do, and relatively simple, just have the other two to build now and will probably try and get them both done together. I also have a bit of a soft spot for the Tau so look forward to doing a few more of them, I now need to figure out how to translate the scheme up so that it is suitable for the bigger mechs!

The Asimov series is great, I read it quite a few years ago, the first few books I think are the best, much like the dune series tbh! Two recommendations for the Lensman series, wow not bad for something written in the 70’s! I’m just reading it again at the minute and really enjoying it, the first book starts a little slow, but once you get into them they are great!

Woop woop, after a few hours, a glass or two of wine and no interruptions it is done. Back packs complete, models based and all ready to go. Formal pictures to be sorted tomorrow but happy the models are all complete, plus managed to get the pathfinders and tyranid warrior based as well. Heading to bed late, I’m not sure if the baby (13 month old) is going to give me the sleep I need to function as a human but I’m wishing!

The other two veterans have had the gold applied and washes on the reds and racarth flesh. I need to do base colours on the faces, the wreaths (greens) and bolt gun metal. Haven’t started any highlights, but they are starting to come together.

One thing I have realised is that trying to display them is going to be a challenge as all the models for the squad are at conflicting angles and so there is not a hope of them being arranged uniformly! Not a tonight problem, but when it comes to adding them to the shelves my OCD will be an issue!

No painting tonight, but managed to get the camera out to take a few photos. I still haven't quite figured out how to get the best lighting or angles to make them look as good as they do in real life, so that is a bit of a work in progress for me. Unfortunately when i do figure it out I will probably have to take everything out of the cabinet and snap some proper photos of them. Any tips would be more than welcome!

Until then - apologies for the quality - but here are the pathfinders, tyranid warrior and the 8 completed veterans.

No painting tonight, but managed to get the camera out to take a few photos. I still haven't quite figured out how to get the best lighting or angles to make them look as good as they do in real life, so that is a bit of a work in progress for me. Unfortunately when i do figure it out I will probably have to take everything out of the cabinet and snap some proper photos of them. Any tips would be more than welcome!

Until then - apologies for the quality - but here are the pathfinders, tyranid warrior and the 8 completed veterans.

Multiple sources of diffuse light. And lots of it.

This can be as simple as taping some parchment paper over desk lamps. You can use just normal paper, but be careful on how hot it gets on the lamps. Parchment paper is designed for oven use, so less spontaneous combustion. A dedicated light box, either purchased or constructed, is more ideal. You can get a nice one for less the a box of marines.

The first thing I see looking at that pictures are the harsh shadows. You get those from single sources of bright light. By having multiple sources you get light from one lamp into the shadow of the other. By diffusing the light you get it coming in from a wider range of points, and not a single harsh spotlight.

The crop on the tyranid is good. We are getting more of the subject in the picture, less of the backdrop. Dakka likes to resize the pictures to the same size on the screen. So if the minis are only a quarter of the picture, they are going to be real small on the screen for people viewing them. You can use whitespace/background intentionally to frame the mini, suggest motion etc. But in general to show off your work, tighter crops are the way to go.

Brace your camera/phone to prevent blur. Tripods and such are the tool of choice, they make adapters for phones. But just resting on a box to eliminate sway from just holding the camera in the air helps. Ideally, set a time to take a pic a second or two after you press the button. This way the jostling of your finger on the trigger is removed.

Sometimes you need to half click the button to autofocus. Make sure you let your hardware do it’s thing. Sometimes you get blur from depth of focus troubles. If you are hypers zoomed in right next to the mini, there is no way you are getting both the tip of a sword and the face in focus at the same time. The easy answer is to take the photo from farther back, and crop in to what you want. The long answer involves things like shutter speed and f-stop. I used to know that magic mumbo-jumbo, but everything is automatic these days, so I’ve forgotten how it all fits together.

Evening / morning or somewhere in between depending on where you are!  I managed last night to finish painting the last two veterans for the squad - only a couple of days later than hoped but at least they are all completed now.  Just need to get them based and then I can get a full group photo sorted.
 
@Nev - thanks very much for the advice and guidance on the photography, I have been finding it difficult to get the correct light, and probably for one or two of the photos I haven't had the steadiest hands which won't have helped things.   I have been trying to set up multiple light sources to avoid shadows but they aren't diffuse lighting so it maybe doesn't help matters. I will have to try and figure something new out - or a new location - or both to look to improve things.  What it does mean is that there will need to be a whole refresh of all the completed models once I get a good setup that works for me.  But that is a future problem!  
I might also look to do a google search for the camera to make sure i have the right settings (although it is a bit of a black art to me so i might just leave it on the auto setting and just try and get the rest of the variables sorted.
 
Following on from Nev's suggestion on what to paint this month I plan on trying to get through a few of the honour guard models, it will help to get the ball rolling with them all and i predict they will take a little longer than normal given the bling and cloaks etc.  I have also moved a 5-man veteran squad (with bolters and combat shields) to the painting pile as well as the 2x barbgaunts and psychophage, so will give me a bit of variety whilst I'm progressing.  I really should be working on a tactical squad or some heavy weapons but that can be the next scope after these are all done.
 
Enjoy the photos and have a good weekend all.

Good evening all, apologies for the hiatus from my blog, life caught up with me, March turned into a very busy month, with the little one getting ill, the dog getting ill, the dishwasher breaking, drama at work and birthdays which didn't leave much time anything else, as free time just seemed to be eroded away.  On the plus side, my birthday ended up with some spare pennies, a light box, some more paints (some greens for painting camo and orks, some greys and a few others that I can't remember....) and the Horus Heresy breacher upgrade kit.  My plan for the breacher kit is to be make some pseudo sternguard, hopefully!  I have yet to try out the light box, but based on Nev's previous comments it should help improve the quality of my pictures (if not then it is probably more human error which is the issue and that is going to be a lot harder to resolve!).
 
I have managed to finish off and base the last two vanguard veterans, which brings the total completed for the first 3 months of the year up to 29 - and so I have achieved my target for the Warhammer pledge (woop).  This resulted in a trek into my local store for their photo opportunity and also allowed me to collect the miniature of the month (I'm not going to turn down free models if they are available).  Talking to the guys in store they mentioned that epic models also count for the painting pledge, (per base not per model), so I'm going to use the excuse to finish off my epic company which will hopefully allow me to hit the 50 model mark.  I figured the epic models are a little easier (less time consuming) to complete so should boost the numbers nicely.  And they also will qualify nicely for the monthly competition as they are definitely irregular (in size), being the old epic scale!
(I am slightly disappointed I failed at March's challenge, especially given that it was space marines and that is generally the majority of what I paint but never mind).
 
The current epic pile consists of 1 devastator base, 2 assault bases, 7 tactical bases all in glorious marine blue which will finish the 2nd company.  I have also included 5 blood angel bases and support rhinos as a small support detachment.  Once these are done I will be able to draw a line under the marine aspect my epic dalliance!  Although naturally I have some spare rhinos and marines (plus characters) so undoubtably I will return to them at some point when I get a flash of inspiration.  So when they are all completed that will add 17 models to my yearly total, leaving me 4 short of the magic 50.
 
Now my partner has (rather unfairly I feel) accused me of cheating by painting epic models, so I also have 2 barbgaunts and a psychophage partially completed to bolster my numbers, and I am hopeful I will also be able to complete 5 sternguard veterans (or at least one or two) in order to achieve the magic number of 50 by the start of May.  She has also decided that it would be good for me to contribute to the overall display that the store is producing of all the painted models for the 1million model challenge so I will be taking them in for the grand display on the 9th May - so that is the deadline I need to achieve.  In theory it is all doable - just need to get my head down and hope nothing comes up (or that the misses doesn't mind ignoring me for the next few weeks!).
 
So rather than me rambling on any further, here are some (pretty) pictures for people to look at comment, the finished sternguard veterans, and WIP tyranids and epic marines.

Happy belated birthday.

Marines looking good! That’s a lot of tiny little guys…

Cheers for the birthday wishes Nev, I had a good day, quite relaxed and chilled which was nice.  I decided that most of the pennies will be saved to see what happens with 11th edition and if anything new catches my eye when it is all released, (I've been intrigued by the hype they are building, although I'm not sure I need many new models - or primaris, but never say no.  I like some of the new imperial guard stuff they have been show casing, although I'm not 100% convinced on the wheeled tanks - where are the Salamander tanks or the Tauros scout vehicles - I'd prefer them making a comeback rather than new WW2 look-a-likes!)
Anyway in the interim I decided to treat myself, which resulted in a Tyranid hive tyrant / swarmlord kit appearing at my doorstep.  Now I just have the taxing decision of figuring out which model to build, do I go walker or flyer, swarmlord or Tyrant - I'm not 100% convinced about the stability of the hive tyrant and balancing those massive wings on the tiny tail and base, so do I do something different (legs and wings for example) - any advice on either / all would be appreciated.  (Note my tyranids so far are mainly walkers, termagants, genestealers, a couple of warriors, psychophage, carnifex and tyrannofex, which is leading me towards a walking swarmlord or hive tyrant, but the wings are calling me......) alternatively if any one knows where you can get a spare hive tyrant body?


…tbh I’m swaying towards the swarmlord, as advised by co-pilot,but who knows.

Tonight was a bit of painting of Barbgaunts guns and a lot of attaching marines to bases - so here is they are on parade!!

For being airborne on their tail, the flyrant is pretty stable. It’s been a while since I built mine, so don’t know how hard it would be to swap between foot/flight builds. Probably a PITA.

Magnetizing the foot version to swap between a normal tyrant and the Swarmlord should be easy. Adding the wings might be a little more work. Not because it would be any harder sinking the magnets into the arm sockets, but from the torque/stress of that big flappy wingspan. Not sure if you would need stronger magnets, or to add a little pin in addition to the mags for stability.

If you do go with a flyrant you might want to mag her up anyway for transport. Big footprint in the case. I didn’t, but honestly when I was building her my nids were like my tertiary army, so thoughts about getting everyone to the FLGS were pretty low priority. I glued the body/wings, but maged the lower arms for weapon swaps.

From a game mechanics POV it’s not the right time to make the call on how it will play. With 11th just a few months away what’s hot now might be garbage tomorrow. Build on theme, and magnetize for safety. I don’t know if mine have made it to the table in 10th, I’ve mostly been playing CP for 40k. So no tactical advice from me.

Unless you stick them in a unit of Tyrant Guard they are going to be roving troubleshooters, no mater how you build it. Wings give you more distance, but also a little less tough. But if you are going to have one winged model in your list, it should be a flyrant.

If I were you considering your collection, I’d build the first one on foot, mag all 4 arms. You could see how well the winged arms work on the foot body as swappable options. The next one you get can be built as a dedicated flyrant.

Thanks for the advice and thoughts Nev, always good to get a second opinion. I’ll add tyrant guard to the list of things that Malay need to be added to the army in future!!!

Well, sticking to a theme leads me down the foot slogger, which is where my mind was heading. Magnet wise, I’ll have to see what I have and how brave I’m feeling, I’ve had some limited success with magnets in the past - getting them round the wrong way or not having the right strength are the biggest issues. Plus I never know what to do with the spare bits!

Last night I set up the light box and took a few practise shots, not to be shared here - turns out operator error is a bigger issue than I thought, so a little more trial and error is needed before I will have things optimised. I think camera settings, background colour choice and camera steadiness are a few areas for me to work on, but the light box did make them look better so it was a step in the right direction.

Aside from that the barbgaunts are now completed the carapace has been highlighted and the feet/hooves have been painted and shaded. Now on to the psychophage, probably tonight or tomorrow’s challenge, it mainly needs the carapace highlighted and then I need to paint all of its teeth - which is something I am not looking forward to! Wish me luck

A good bit of progress today, psychophage (oh how I can’t wait to finish it and not have to type that word again) is coming along well, managed some daytime painting which was novel, the little one slept and the big one chilled and started on his dinosaur (termagant model of the month) - he has chosen a few colours he wants to use, gold and pink so I’m going to try and make it and easy scheme for him to do, washes and dry brush I think but will keep you posted on his progress.

The psychophage carapace is done, the highlights improved the model considerably, the teeth are done which was easier than I thought it was going to be, and the claws are also done, just need to finish the base rocks and rubble and then it will be ready to be based.

Evening all, today was productive (or at least the evening) I managed to finish off the last bits on the psychophage, woop woop. All that is now required is to do the base and I can claim another one for the challenge. I figure I can do a final basing session when the last ones are done.

So with that in mind I’ve moved back to the blues again - a combat squad of sternguard to get done in the next week or so should be possible I hope and that will round things out nicely. The blues were done last week or the week before and so it’s now blocking out the colours, metallic first. Biggest dilemma at the minute is how to paint the shields (I’m thinking white and gold edging) and the extra armour on the left shoulder pad, I was leaning towards gold but will have to see how the model is looking before I decide, unless I get any good recommendations.

Pictures of the marines to follow soon when I get one or two more colours on them. In the meantime the tyranid monster will have to do.

Another day, another paint brush raised and another model finished, or more specifically 5 completed. The 5 sternguard have been painted (not based) and are ready to go. And their completion brings the grand total over the magically 50 mark for the start of the year. Quota achieved, pledge sorted, happy days!

Ok they need basing but thats easy enough to arrange.

I’m quite happy how these models have turned out, many years ago I wanted to create a squad with bolters and shields. In my mind i imagined a veteran squad, using combat shields, to provide additional protection as they storm an emplacement or route out xenos from a bunker or complex. Over time i curated various bits and pieces that I thought I could use in creating the squad. The round shields seemed appropriate to count as combat shields, the sergeant obviously having something a little beefier to allow him to lead from the front. The legs and bodies are a mixture of armour parts to represent their status as veterans having fought over the past hundred (thousand) years. The sergeant obviously having fancier armour to align with his status, but I like the image of him having fought alongside the blood angels at some point before being gifted the arm mounted bolter. Likewise the squad standard has spent some time in the Honour guard, hence his choice of helmet. Since I first envisaged this squad I’ve managed to acquire items to allow some dedicated breachers to be added to the army, so I will probably end up with some portion of the 1st company (probably 20 marines) similarly equipped. Tbh I’m not sure which company they should sit in, but they strike me as specialist sternguard so that’s where they will reside. And that brings the 1st company total to 40 marines, oops!

Looking good! I had a similar thought years ago and made a counts-as squad for Legion of the Damned, but as UM breachers. Storm shields for the 3++ and bolters. Not quite happy with my results, but a fun modeling project.

The veterans are coming along nicely ! And that psychophage is just insane !

Amazing job in staying committed to such an impressive endeavour! Hope life's treating you well and don't burn yourself out

Loving the tiny epic chaps, makes me want to own a whole chapter complete with vehicles! Really like the round shields on the breachers, suitably Roman for the boys in blue I feel

Evening gents, thanks for the kind words.

@Nev - you’ll have to dig them out sometime and share a photo sounds a good project and I’d be interested to see the results. I’m a big fan of breachers at the minute so would be good to see your take on them.
@Sarpe - I’m happy with both the vets and the psychophage. My tyranid sat the minute have a mixture of purple based or turquoise based carpaces and both seem to produce nice effects. It was my first time painting a monster sized creature and I was worried how the skin would come out but seems to have been alright. I was cursing the teeth as I was painting them but really think they make the model! The next monster will likely be the tyrannofex which is even bigger and uglier but less teeth which will eb nice!!
@gobert - the epic guys were a real accident, mainly from my dalliance into titan legions. I wanted a few to put on the bases to create little scenes / action but ended up getting a few too many (I think I lost track) and before i realised it I figured I could create the second company in epic form to match the 40K version I’m trying to build. At least I have one finished now, just need to hurry up with the 40K one. I do prefer the old scale to the new bigger epic stuff, but that could just be me being stuck in the past.

Since the veterans I’ve not been feeling to well, which has both helped and hindered things. Time not at work, but feeling lousy, increased sleep and time in bed. I have however managed to finish two Tau stealth suits and two marine librarians (one UM and one BA). For the stealth suits I’ve tried to have them transforming to camouflage themselves - with a white ish energy band leading the change. I think it works (obviously) but the misses isn’t convinced - what’s everyone’s thoughts?

 JordySteve wrote:
Evening gents, thanks for the kind words.

@Nev - you’ll have to dig them out sometime and share a photo sounds a good project and I’d be interested to see the results. I’m a big fan of breachers at the minute so would be good to see your take on them.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1001092-LotD%20Squad.html

As I said, not really happy with them. But the idea of 40k breachers appealed to me. With bonus DS.

Since the veterans I’ve not been feeling to well, which has both helped and hindered things. Time not at work, but feeling lousy, increased sleep and time in bed. I have however managed to finish two Tau stealth suits and two marine librarians (one UM and one BA). For the stealth suits I’ve tried to have them transforming to camouflage themselves - with a white ish energy band leading the change. I think it works (obviously) but the misses isn’t convinced - what’s everyone’s thoughts?

The white band is too wide? If you want to have the transition effect, you should either blend it up from the normal scheme to pure white, or keep the transition zone a lot narrower. Basically a bright line of OSL moving up/down the mini.

Not that I have the brush skills to pull it off. It’s a solid effort!

 JordySteve wrote:
Evening gents, thanks for the kind words.

@Sarpe - I’m happy with both the vets and the psychophage. My tyranid sat the minute have a mixture of purple based or turquoise based carpaces and both seem to produce nice effects. It was my first time painting a monster sized creature and I was worried how the skin would come out but seems to have been alright. I was cursing the teeth as I was painting them but really think they make the model! The next monster will likely be the tyrannofex which is even bigger and uglier but less teeth which will eb nice!! .

Since the veterans I’ve not been feeling to well, which has both helped and hindered things. Time not at work, but feeling lousy, increased sleep and time in bed. I have however managed to finish two Tau stealth suits and two marine librarians (one UM and one BA). For the stealth suits I’ve tried to have them transforming to camouflage themselves - with a white ish energy band leading the change. I think it works (obviously) but the misses isn’t convinced - what’s everyone’s thoughts?

The colours work really well together and they do look really nice ! Awesome colour scheme there. Original and striking.
You did good with the teeth and skin, well worth the effort if you ask me !
Can't wait to see that tyrannofex with those colours as well

Hope you don't burn yourself out there mate, and that you'll soon feel better . I can relate with time in bed part and it does make me feel like crap. Hard to find a perfect balance with everything around. Take care mate.

For the Tau suits, the two main colours look great but I'll tend to say pretty much what @Nev said.
Or you could also add a thin line in the middle like a blue one highlighted up to a more vibrant and laser like blue. I've mostly seen this type of effect on alpha legionnaire so that may be where the blue comes from to me though !

Keep up the amazing work !