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Well, well, well. After nearly 2 years I have finally finished my first fully painted 40k unit: This is a Salamanders tactical squad of the second company. Painted up to a decent tabletop quality.

Overall Squad:



Sergeant Petrakis:





Battle brothers:



Close up of the Plasma Gunner and the Grav Cannon operator:





The basing scheme is an arid scrubland. Most people go with a volcanic basing scheme for Salamanders but I wanted something more muted so it doesn't distract from the actual models. As for why there is a distinct lack of flamers? Well, it's because I glued the squad together before I knew what I wanted to do with the army haha. I assure you I have some tactical bodies in reserve and in the future there will be some burning goodness. Besides, Plasma is still a kind of heat weapon, no?

Next up is this Venerable Dread and this Lieutenant I kitbashed. I am now at the point with my bits where I can stick together a complete marine by digging around.

The reason the dreadnought looks minty green is because he was stripped after I botched up a primer job. Tip for you fine folks out there: Army Painter spray primers need to be held a lot closer to the model than most other aersol paint sprayers. I used the typical distance I do for GW sprays and it left a gritty finish.

Lieutenant "I point at things therefore I am in charge" Guy:


Minty Fresh Dreadnought:


Comments and criticisms welcomed! I won't be offended if you call out my mistakes. I always want to improve!

Sharp looking squad. How do you do your green?

Like the LT build.

Have you tried PCs on dreads in 8th yet? I was wondering if they were worth it now, they do look cool, but always underpreformed in the past.

 Nevelon wrote:
Sharp looking squad. How do you do your green?

Like the LT build.

Have you tried PCs on dreads in 8th yet? I was wondering if they were worth it now, they do look cool, but always underpreformed in the past.

Thank you! The green was done with a spray primer of AP Greenskin along with an overall layer of AP Greenskin. Then I washed all the recessed areas, cleaned up and then highlighted with moot green. It's a simple and effective paint scheme that I adapted from Duncan's Salamanders tutorial which I recommend any prospective son of vulkan to check out.

I haven't actually played any games of 8th yet. I'm waiting to get a small force fully painted before I do. But I've heard good things and... well, really if I wanted to go fully competitive I'd take an Ironclad.

I really like the lieutenant too. I'm glad Games Workshop brought them back because they present a fun modelling project as they are officers who aren't quite as fancy as Captains but fancier than tacticals. That plus their wide variety of options makes kitbashing them a real treat.

I've taken some better pictures of my marines using the lighting tutorial from GW. I think I should acquire some daylight bulbs and a second desk lamp because, well, the shadows are pretty heavy but for now this will do!

Plasma Gunner:



Sergeant:




Regular Brother Astartes:
















Grav-Cannon Operator:


I also did a lot of cleaning up in between the OP and these photos. Turns out a lot of mistakes will be exposed once you shine a desk lamp on them!

Holy lack of updates Batman! Yeah, this semester has been poop with a constant barrage of essays and tests. But I managed to sneak in enough painting hours to get this Ven dread done. I might get a flamer arm for him at some point.

Good to see you still at it. Dread came out great!

So, I got the bug to paint some historicals. Here is the humble start to my late war German army! An 8 man squad of Heer Grenadiers. They're WLG miniatures for those who are curious.








And here are new* additions to my Space Marine army!

Salamanders Lt.



Salamanders Scout Squad

I dig your salamanders! Refreshing to see some not based on weird lava ground. Your paint work gives them a nice, traditional finish. Subbed (P.S Formerly Salamanders but still Salamanders had me going for a long while there )

@Nevelon

Thank you! It's just one of the four dreads I have to paint. I might do some other weapon arms too.

@LDP

I appreciate it! I thought about doing lava but I decided to do something a little different for my Salamanders. I based the basing on the local deserts in SoCal. Sort of an arid scrubland. The painting scheme is based on the WHTV painting guide to Salamanders. It was a huge challenge for me since this is the first army that I ever edge highlighted. Btw I'm a big fan of your Ultras.

Next up is a Rhino/Razorback. The model is 99% done I just have to apply a matt varnish to it because I gloss coated some panes to apply the decals. Then it's a tactical squad and a librarian.

Btw, my brush is kind of... not so good anymore. Can anyone recommend me some new brushes? Specifically one to do eyes because the army painter brush I got is kind sucky for it.