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I love painting, and although I do it slower than anyone I've ever met, I find it very relaxing. I currently have IG and Ork armies, and wanted to start something new. Unfortunately for me, those are really the only two armies that I like, so I decided to start up a fresh IG army of my favorite regiment. I don't play 40K, but maybe I'll get into it once I have enough painted models.

So let me introduce you to my newest project.

I will very slowly be working my way towards 1000 points of Tallarn.
Starting with a rough draft of my first miniature, I wanted to see how well I could do with keeping the colors close to each other. Having a large majority of the colors a few steps up or down from the tan.

Satisfied with the overall scheme, I knocked out a few more infantry models and then worked on a Kasrkin. I was a little disappointed with the Kasrkin model but it was the best I could find. It's from a different designer than the infantry squad, and I think the hands and weapons are much too large for the model which frankly makes it look out of place for me. Otherwise I do like the detail and I think it's quite easy to differentiate between the two types of infantry.

The next step was to knock out a few more Kasrkin models so I could see how the volley guns, hot-shot, and plasma looked. I modified the plasma pistol with one of the extremely old ones from 1991 that I thought would be a fun touch. Unfortunately I only have the single plasma pistol so this will be the only lucky Sergeant to receive one. I haven't quite decided what to do with the sword yet, I might pull it off and redo it with a chainsword.

Looking for a little break in painting the infantry, I wanted to test out a Rough Rider conversion. I love riding, so when I saw the AJ kit I knew they would make a great conversion. I know this is a popular one, but in sourcing the parts from 4 different kits, I am quite confident that this is a very unique conversion. It came out great, and I am very impressed.





That is all I have completed so far, and it's taken me about a month. I should be able to move a little faster now that I've settled on a design, but none of the models so far are 100% complete. I have to finish the rim of the bases, and I want to put transfers on their shoulders pads but haven't quite decided what to put.
I saw a youtube tutorial about making your own transfers, so I might look into that. Right now though the focus in on getting more models completed. Thank you for checking in!

This looks like a fun project. I look forward to watching your progress.

Ooh, these are cool. I love the bases!

Your Tallarn are cool, looking forward to seeing more!

Great looking roughrider. Can't wait to see more of this project!

Thanks everyone for the interest so far. I will be posting weekly updates with a monthly edit to the main post.

Last week I began working on the two Sergeants for my first two infantry squads. The attached image shows them with their drum-fed autoguns. This week I'll be working on the plasma gunners.

Ooh, those look great. I love the autoguns.

Those sergeants look pretty good. I wonder if they wouldn't benefit from their pants and tunics having slightly different shades so they don't look like they're wearing bodysuits...

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Those sergeants look pretty good. I wonder if they wouldn't benefit from their pants and tunics having slightly different shades so they don't look like they're wearing bodysuits...

Thank you for the feedback. I can see in the image that the colors look similar, but it's a much bolder contrast under real light. (The Dakka gallery seems to try to even the tones with their automatic filter) The uniform is Zandri Dust base with Aggaros Dunes and a drybrush of Zandri dust to bring the color back up.

The kefiya is Ushtabi Bone with Skeleton Horde and a drybrush of Ushtabi Bone.

They are similar in tone, but that was the intent of the color scheme and when the two are next to each other the contrast is more apparent.

XCaligulaX wrote:

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Those sergeants look pretty good. I wonder if they wouldn't benefit from their pants and tunics having slightly different shades so they don't look like they're wearing bodysuits...

Thank you for the feedback. I can see in the image that the colors look similar, but it's a much bolder contrast under real light. (The Dakka gallery seems to try to even the tones with their automatic filter) The uniform is Zandri Dust base with Aggaros Dunes and a drybrush of Zandri dust to bring the color back up.

The kefiya is Ushtabi Bone with Skeleton Horde and a drybrush of Ushtabi Bone.

They are similar in tone, but that was the intent of the color scheme and when the two are next to each other the contrast is more apparent.

Do you use the Dakka filter? I find my photos look more accurate without it, but that might be a function of my not-very-good smartphone camera.

If they look good in real life, then feel free to ignore my comment.

I did use the Dakka filter, in the future I'll try uploading the pictures without it so it doesn't wash them out. Thanks for the tip!

XCaligulaX wrote:
I did use the Dakka filter, in the future I'll try uploading the pictures without it so it doesn't wash them out. Thanks for the tip!

Well, try both and see which looks better to you.

Either way, I'm enjoying watching this project. Your faces in particular are superb.

I had some extra time off this week, so I got a little more done than normal. I kind of feel bad that all that extra time and I only managed to paint 5 models, but such are the woes of the slow painter.

This week I was able to complete all four plasma guns I had printed out, as well as a second Vox caster for squad number 2 (which as I'm typing this I realize I didn't include in the picture).


Now that those plasma gunners are complete, I have finally finished the first squad. Still too lazy to paint the edge of the bases, but I ordered a desert mat for my gaming table so I'll have to knock them out when I do my end of month recap.


I also printed off 5 more Kasrkin to finish off that squad, as well as 5 more regular guardsmen to finish a second infantry squad. Once those are complete I will start working on my tank commander with Gatekeeper. All my normal tanks will be LRBT's because I do love that model, although I have some low profile sponsons I'll be using because I don't like how boxy and large the stock sponsons are. The tank commander is a printed tank of a different design, so I am eager to begin work on that, most likely in March.

this is a great example of whats needed from guard collectors. enthusiasm and creativity enough to make a guard army that's not just another set of cadians in a different colour.

most impressive. more please!

That's a nifty unit-- they look great all together like that. They'll look even better when their bases are edged...

Yeah, these are looking great!

A note on uniforms - something you may want to try is mixing the shades a bit, so paint some with Zandri Dust tunics and (say) Balor Brown trousers, and some with the colours reversed. Or just do some with Balor Brown or another khaki shade - when you look at real life soldiers, hardly anyone has a uniform the same shade as the next guy unless it's a brand new unit and even then sometimes not. Different dye batches, different wear time and causes, different manufacturers - all add up to make a "uniform" less so than you'd expect.

Of course there's no need to do that; they look great as is, just some food for thought

Tallarn are looking good, keep it up!

This week marked some good progress for me. Now that I finally have the paint scheme down I am started to paint faster. Thanks to some additional time off this week I was able to complete the last 5 guardsmen for my second infantry squad to about 99%.



I didn't do the night sights on the iron sights, and I haven't done the chrome on their goggles yet as I am waiting until I finish the Kasrkin to do all the goggles at once as the chrome paint I have is harder to work with so I don't want to have to use it multiple times when I don't have to. Speaking of Kasrkin, I was also able to get some work done on these 2 out of 5. I'll be spending this week trying to complete all 5. I had an extra base for my Rough Rider I did a while back, so when I did these bases I threw that one in at the same time because why not. I'll look at completing that squad in March.



@Gen.Steiner - I honestly never thought of trying to put variations in their uniforms like that, but you're absolutely right. I am in the military currently and although it's something I see every day at work I never thought about applying it to my miniatures. Unfortunately I don't think it's right for me. I have to stop myself from spending too much time on each individual model or I'll never have a playable army. I really did like your suggestion though and I will definitely make a note to do that when I redo my Blood Axe army.

XCaligula,

Nice to see someone do an entire Tallarn Desert Raiders be constructed and painted.

Cheers,

CB

I am happy to be able to post another weekly update with a great milestone! This week I completed the last of my Kasrkin, giving me a whole squad now. I had originally printed off a power sword for the Sergeant, but realized later that I wasn't going to be paying the 5 points for it so this next week I will change it to a chainsword.



The big news is that my new commander is finished! Since GW doesn't look like it's going to be updating the only special character Tallarn ever had, I took it upon myself to update him myself so have a proper commander for my army. I had started it back in January and it was finally complete last week. Here is a pull from Zbrush showing the completed model, and the final printed version. I am very proud of this as now I have a fully unique model that truly sets my army apart.



Unfortunately painting him will have to wait as after 2 months of painting nothing but infantry I am going to move on! This next week I will complete my other 4 rough riders before moving on to doing some vehicles. Once those are complete I'll come back and finish the commander as well as my command squad and Bullgryn bodyguard. As always thanks for checking in and I'll be posting a monthly recap next week to tidy up the main post.

Are you doing the sculpting on these yourself?! That's truly remarkable!

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Are you doing the sculpting on these yourself?! That's truly remarkable!

I can't take full credit, as I did have some help. I'm not the best with Zbrush but this is definitely going to be the only model I do like this, it took well over a month to complete it.

Quite sure the grunts are Red Maker sculpts - and looking great! Thrilled to see somebody painting them up, someday I'll print my own Tallarn army but for now I'll keep living vicariously through heroes like you

Your Al'rahem, on the other hand, is amazing! Great sculpt and that's got to be so gratifying to see it in print. Awesome work.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Quite sure the grunts are Red Maker sculpts - and looking great! Thrilled to see somebody painting them up, someday I'll print my own Tallarn army but for now I'll keep living vicariously through heroes like you

Your Al'rahem, on the other hand, is amazing! Great sculpt and that's got to be so gratifying to see it in print. Awesome work.

Correct, the only model that isn't from a third party (or 4 different kits in the case of the Rough Riders) is the commander. The Red Maker stuff is the best quality miniatures that I have seen. Great proportions, perfect scaling, great poses, and superb modularity. Every model has additional weapon options so you're not limited to only one or two poses with special weapons. I've bought 6 of their designs so far.

Another small update, I didn't have much time to paint this week so I only got one new Rough Rider complete. I had to print off more parts, and ended up painting a Cyberpunk miniature for a new campaign my group is starting. Here are the shots of the finished model, these end up taking a lot longer than I had expected. The model had parts from 4 different kits on it so each one has a lot of planning/cutting/etc going into it. Thankfully I'm only doing one squad for the moment, but these are my favorite models I've done so far, so my full army will definitely include at least one other squad and a death rider commander in the future.





Here's a small bonus of the Cyberpunk character I did. The model isn't the best quality, and I didn't care enough to spend a lot of time completely cleaning it up, but it was still fun to paint.

Those are excellent 'bashes for Roughriders! The color scheme continues to work well even when combined with the machines. Your basing is excellent also.

When I read "cyberpunk," I imagined a lot more chrome and black leather. Your version is a lot cuter.

Nice kitbash on the roughriders. I think bikes work a lot better than horses for that particular unit.

Another week another update! This week I completed my RR Sergeant. Painting these guys is getting a little faster, but the lance tip on this one took a while because I wanted to do something a bit special for it. I ended up practicing on another sword about 7-8 times before I had something I liked. I'm quite happy with it, and I like the effect it has. I think I need to buy some glossy glaze to put over it to give it more of a shine, but that'll come later. I also need to touch up the wheels as the matte black I use is very delicate.




I also prepped a Lord Solar proxy model. I'm somewhat scared that with Lord Solar and Angron that 40k is slowly turning back into the herohammer we had ~10ish years ago, but he is a crazy good model with a lot of utility so I figured I had to have something for him eventually. I had kept my eyes open for a good scorpion-esque model to use and finally settled on this one. I think the scale is about the same as far as height, and it certainly fits a desert theme a lot better than the actual model. Since I'm only working on models in my 1k list, this one will be sitting on the bench for a while but it gives me something to look forward to after I slowly move up in points.


And finally, I went back and painted all the base rims on the models, and took a group shot on my new desert mat I bought. This is everything I have so far, a testiment to my slow painting that represents almost 3.5 months of work. Maybe by Summer I'll have enough to actually play, we'll see!

When I read "cyberpunk," I imagined a lot more chrome and black leather. Your version is a lot cuter.

I was originally going to do some darker colors, but in the Cyberpunk rulebook there is a picture of a Hello Kitty inspired gun, so I thought it would be more fun to base the character around that so I ended up basing her on my wife, who loves cutesy gak like that.

I really like the effect you achieved on that power lance. I may have to try and copy it.

Your group shot is pretty cool. I know that one needs a lot more models for a textbook 40K guard army, but this would be a cool warband for a smaller, skirmish scale game.

Lord Solar as a scorpion-centaur dude is a rad twist

Great spear tip, another nice RR.