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I think I've determined the final look for my army, and I've finished painting the first three soldiers - an officer and two guardsmen (possibly sergeants). I'd appreciate basing suggestions, or any more painting tips anybody can offer. Thanks to those who suggested shading techniques for the cloaks - that advice proved very helpful.

I haven't settled on a name for this force yet, but they're themed as a hive world garrison regiment - one that pays at least as much attention to its ceremonial duties as its combat training. As such, they have flashy dress uniforms with white cloaks and polished armor instead camoflage fatigues, and they wear caps instead of helmets. They have a locally manufactured lasgun pattern intended for hosing fire around in close-range urban combat (basically the Cadian lasgun with a large "drum" magazine and a foregrip). The standard aquilae are absent from their equipment in favor of planetary insignia (I haven't actually managed to make one small enough yet - I may just put them on banners instead). I added a pair of goggles to their standard equipment, mostly because I thought their hats needed some embelishment.

I haven't based any of them yet. I think some sort of urban ground, like asphalt or concrete, would be most appropriate. On the other hand, I'm not all that certain that putting more gray or black underneath them would be a good idea.

I was initially worried that the conversions for these guys would be too time-consuming for me to make an entier force of them. I've found I can do the putty and plasticard work pretty quickly, though - it's the paint that's taking hours upon hours. Does it normally take that long to paint troops, or have I done something to their uniforms that makes them especially tough? (It seems like the opposite would be true - the cloaks cover a lot of little details.)

Here are a couple of images. The one with the helmet is an early design concept I discarded after seeing it with paint on - this much silver next to gray didn't seem to work well. I may do something similar if I ever need any stormtroopers.

Mein gott those look fantastic.

I want to suggest color but I think the starkness of the grey and white and silver has a power to it. I would avoid black, I think the light color scheme makes them look distinct.

The minor conversion to the gun makes them look very distinct.

They look very good obviously a snowplanet army or at least thats what the colo sheme says to me anyways. The cilver on your helmets and guns looks a bit thick perhaps a dryer drybrush on the next group? The drybrush for the silver/boltgun metal will really bring out the detail of your guns instead of hiding it, other then that they look great I hope you post some more examples as you continue your army.

Looking good!

Bases - the asphalt idea sounds good! I wouldn't paint it black though, just go off-black, same with any road markings you paint on - use faded colours rather than bright ones so it looks aged and doesn't detract attention from the model. The odd drain cover etc would also be good, maybe even a lampost/other street furniture on larger bases - heavy weapons lying behind an old bin etc? Some German model railway scenery companies have some very good self adhesive asphalt/road paper texture stuff, would be perfect with a very light grey drybrush over the top to make it a little lighter. Edge the bases in black.

Hope that helps, but feel free to do something different - it's your army!

By the way - any plans for tanks? They'd look cool with wheels instead of tracks, I know on the back of an old white dwarf there was a arbites necromunda gang with a 6 wheeled chimera, looked quite simple to convert but very effective!

Looks good! almost like my color scheme. ALways good to see a new guard player.

Wow, these look really good, I particularly like the gray scheme, since most guard armies I see tend to look alike.

However the guns seem to fade into the gray uniforms since they are a similar shade. While on three test models it isn't that noticeable, when you have a hundred guardsmen lined up the guns will look like they've disappeared. I'd suggest using a darker silver and keep the bright color you have for highlights.

All in all, these turned out very well.

They look very good obviously a snowplanet army or at least thats what the colo sheme says to me anyways.
-Zhetsuken

Surprisingly enough, I hadn't considered this. It would actually make some of their equipment, like white cloaks and tinted goggles, seem practical. I was going to object that they aren't dressed warmly enough, but then I realized that they're wearing gloves on their hands, at least two layers of clothing almost everywhere, and have hoods they could cover most of their exposed skin with. That also meshes nicely with some of the basing suggestions I see here - perhaps asphalt with some light snow accumulation, like some of the Vostoryan bases I've seen.

The cilver on your helmets and guns looks a bit thick perhaps a dryer drybrush on the next group? The drybrush for the silver/boltgun metal will really bring out the detail of your guns instead of hiding it. . .
-Zhetsuken

. . .However the guns seem to fade into the gray uniforms since they are a similar shade. . .I'd suggest using a darker silver and keep the bright color you have for highlights.
-theHandofGork

You've both pointed out that my metallic paint needs some work, and I agree. I'm slightly confused about the alternatives you've described, though. I'm going to explain what I'm doing in detail - please tell me how you'd change this procedure. Note that, on recommendation from my local hobby shop, I'm using Tamyia metallic paints, although I'm using Citadel paint for everything else.

Here's how I've done the metal so far:
1. Prime with Chaos Black spray
2. Base-coat with Tamyia's "Chrome" (similar to Citadel's "Mithril Silver", I think) for the silver parts and Tamyia's "Copper" (I haven't seen a Citadel equivalent - one of the reasons I'm using Tamyia metallics) for the copper parts
3. Use Citadel's "Badab Black" wash on all metallic parts (very heavy - they end up looking quite tarnished when it dries, and I try to get lots of black ink in the crevices)
4. Dry-brush over the washed metallic areas with the original colors from Step (2). I'm going for realistic metals, but they're supposed to look clean and well-maintained.
5. Use the normal "wet" brush technique with the original colors from Step (2) on a few areas of each metal item (usually the corners on one side of a square piece, the top of a rounded piece, or most of a very small part such as a button). I meant for this to produce a mild highlight, but I don't think it's really doing much of anything.

I'll note that I did try using Tamyia's "Gunmetal" (presumably similar to Citadel's "Boltgun Metal", though perhaps darker) in some of my early attempts. It came out looking too much like a gloss version of the black-washed "Codex Gray" on their shirts and pants. I think if the guns are to stand out, they need to be lighter instead of darker. I thought about inverting to colors from silver with copper trim to copper with silver trim, but I've seen a few other armies with orange guns and didn't care for the look at all (Copper trim is also nice because the "trim" elements of the gun tend to be the ones that touch the other white and gray parts of the model.)

By the way - any plans for tanks? They'd look cool with wheels instead of tracks, I know on the back of an old white dwarf there was a arbites necromunda gang with a 6 wheeled chimera, looked quite simple to convert but very effective!
-covenant84

Tanks are definitely in my plans, although they may look a little different from the rest of the army. I'm thinking of having my vehicles crewed by Mechanicus personnel and be designed to match them - especially the heavy tanks. Wheeled Chimeras would make sense for an urban force, but might not fit with the snow-world idea I'm now thinking about - I'll look into it. Thanks for the basing tips, by the way - any suggestions for adding a little snow to that? (Maybe to get a lightening effect similar to the drybrushed aging you described?)

You need to work on the eyes. The pop-eyed look detracts from the figures quite a bit, IMO. The rest of it looks good. Could use some more shading, so that you can see the fingers, etc, but overall a nice job.