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really if they are in for the fun maybe they wouldn't raise an eyebrow of you just making two lists in one?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
really if they are in for the fun maybe they wouldn't raise an eyebrow of you just making two lists in one?

I checked with them, I think they're O.K with it!

SIR! THERE'S AN UPDATE INCOOOOOOOMING!!!! DUCK FOR COOOOOOVEERRRRR!!!!!!!

I finally finished my first Catachan Jungle Fighters Squad last Saturday, but I was able to take some photos today. I tried to experiment, inspired by Brother SRM's old P&M Blogs and his style of photography.

'THIS IS WHAT I CALL A TARGET RICH ENVIRONMENT!'

Overall, I had a whale of a time painting this squad. I learned a lot from the experience, and while some guys are a little sloppy, I feel as a unit they look pretty good (If i do say so myself), and I can't wait to see how multiple squads will look deployed together. I really like the Flamer guy with the mohawk (an interesting touch by the designers, as supposedly US troops in Vietnam would give themselves mohawks before suicide missions, which is a fascinating bit of history, if correct). The fuel-tank came out quite well, I'd say. It was just leadbelcher with mephiston red painted over (partly out of easiness, partly to create a sloppy, paint-wearing-off effect). I used copious amounts of agrax earthshade on the end of the flamer, giving the impression it had been used a lot and had burn marks on it.
I still love the first guy I painted, the guy with the bandana fully covering his head. I still try and follow his colour scheme to a T with my other guys. I also tried to experiment with a little diversity in the squad. Not for 'The Message' but because Catachan troops with darker skin appeared in some of Karl Kopinski's older artwork (may he get well soon!) and I figured it was worth trying. It'll also be a useful tactic when painting duplicates of the same metal sculpt in future.

I have a lot more to say about it, but I'll whittle it down to the fact the Comm-Link operator's antenna broke off. After months of being extremely careful with him, it was the act of brushing my hand against it while showing it to someone that bent it off. Cruel Irony I suppose. (actually, I find it looks a bit better without it. no I am not coping, what gave you that idea?!).

'BUT BULLISARIUS!' I hear you yell. 'THAT SQUAD ONLY HAS EIGHT TROOPERS!'
I know, I know. So basically my plan is to paint a few metal Catachans to fill in gaps in squads all at once, so you might not see the full 10-man squad for a couple weeks to a month. Yesterday I ordered a rarer bayonet-sculpt and a poorly-painted metal 'demolition team' so you'll be seeing a big pile of metal dudes soon.

Today I managed to finally procure some black primer, so after I finish my Commissar (that's the character I'm currently working on) and Command Squad, I will work on my Chimera.

The Commissar should be finished soon.
Cheers!

+++++ HOLD THE LINE +++++

Awesome job on finishing the first squad, they look great and the skin tones look good. The fatigues and weapons colours all work well.
I’ve managed to acquire a few catachan but have always shied away from painting them due to my historically poor attempts at painting flesh! Might be time to dig them out again!

Hey, they're looking crisp mate!

Can't wait for the rambo angels list

Heyo, got to make an announcement but it doesn't feel right without some sort of picture update, so have this primed command squad from a couple weeks ago



anyway, I tried to paint the Commissar a bit more but it seems Nurgle must have brushed my shoulder or bumped into me too hard, because I have been feeling like drek for the past couple days and painting hasn't really been an option. Visiting the family in Ireland next week, so I can't really paint there either. So any proper updates might not come for a while.




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 JordySteve wrote:
Awesome job on finishing the first squad, they look great and the skin tones look good. The fatigues and weapons colours all work well.
I’ve managed to acquire a few catachan but have always shied away from painting them due to my historically poor attempts at painting flesh! Might be time to dig them out again!

Thanks! Yeah, I would say try to paint them. even if you don't end up liking the result, it's worth trying. Painting skin isn't that hard either. I just use a wet palette and paint in relatively thin layers. With the right primer colour it's easy as pie.


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 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Hey, they're looking crisp mate!

Can't wait for the rambo angels list

Danke, they took a while to paint, but I think it paid off. I could have done better highlights on a couple guys, but I think they look fine as a squad.

As for the combined list, I can say that probably won't be for a while. And if it does happen, they'll probably be more of a 'backup' force to the Guard. Sort of like Chaplain Varnus and the Ultramarines to the massed force of the Cadian 412th in Winter Assault.

Now you're making références that make me shed a tear of nostalgia

Wow, how did I miss this blog? Some really cool stuff in here, totally love your Catachan models! So oldschool and awesome! Looking forward to more

Nicely painted squad, quite honestly. Nice basing too- so many hobbyists leave messy runs but these are lovely. I like the slightly darker pallet used on these guys- the group effect looks great.

Happy belated Easter and 4/20 to our more... substance inclined Dakkanauts. I hope you all had a nice time, and once again thanks for all the replies. I read all of them and they motivate me to paint even more. You're all responsible in some part for all the Jungle Fighters I paint. Imagine that!

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Now you're making références that make me shed a tear of nostalgia

I only got to play Winter Assault recently, but I see what you mean. Great game. Even though I play Catachans and it's Cadians in the game (which should be Valhallans, realistically but eh who cares?) it's proved to be a big motivation to get more Guardsmen completed. I'm doing both campaigns at once, one mission after the other, e.g Chaos then Guard then Chaos/Orks etc. That mission where you attack the Land Raider convoy is brutal though...

 Ragsta wrote:
Nicely painted squad, quite honestly. Nice basing too- so many hobbyists leave messy runs but these are lovely. I like the slightly darker pallet used on these guys- the group effect looks great.

Hey, thanks very much! Yeah, I tried to avoid using too much shade but layering covered up a lot of mistakes and pooling. Agrax Earth-Shade is quite the messy wash. As for the basing, it's just Vallejo Russian Uniform WWII (basically Death Guard Green), washed with Agrax Earth-Shade, and drybrushed with Karak Stone, then a lighter drybrush of Krieg Khaki. I find it creates a nice jungle ground feel, as I wasn't using the Barbed Bracken plants on these guys yet, so I reasoned I could at least try and make it look like they were standing in a clearing or something.

 FeistyRips wrote:
Wow, how did I miss this blog? Some really cool stuff in here, totally love your Catachan models! So oldschool and awesome! Looking forward to more

It's a real honour to have you here FeistyRips! I'm a big fan of your work and your Plogs have been a big inspiration for how I format/update mine. Again. an absolute honour to have someone of your expertise/skill liking my alright-looking Jungle Fighters. Cheers! I'm reworking my Commissar to have a simpler scheme so you should see more of him soon. Then it's on to a Command Squad. More updates to come soon!

Some really nice Catachans you did there. Made me think about getting a Squad myself before they potentially get updated

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Some really nice Catachans you did there. Made me think about getting a Squad myself before they potentially get updated

Hey, thanks a lot! I would recommend the models for sure, but only to someone with a bit more hobby experience (something you seem to have no shortage of, so I would say go for it.). It's only about 35 euro anyway, and they're just fun and easy models to paint. very rewarding too, and you can kitbash them with the old cadians too, shame they don;t make those lads anymore.


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Remember how I mentioned that I managed to acquire some old Space Marine Scout shotguns? Well, I decided to put them to use, and I had 5~6 guardsmen left over, and I liked the rules that new Krieg Engineer squad had. So, you know what happens next!





Ta-da!!

They still need a mine and a flamer guy, but I don't think they look too shabby so far. I put them together a few weeks ago and I added a couple pouches and some frag/krak grenades to differentiate them from standard Jungle Fighters. I want to lean into the 'Demolition Team' aspect instead of the 'Engineer' side, and I think it's coming along pretty well. They're also test-runs for my eventual Kasrkin proxies.



I also added some more parts to my Chimera. Even with a fuel tank and knife-sheath it felt a little bland, and after playing Winter Assault I decided to add a lamp on the side as well as some supplies too. I feel Chimeras are one of the few vehicles you can get away with being uneven in your upgrades. It's a lot more 'realistic' or rather it has the 'illusion of realism' (I don't know whether I've mentioned that before, but basically that's the name I give to things that seem realistic but actually aren't. For example the airport metal detector in Left 4 Dead's Dead Air campaign alerting the zombies, even though the survivors could just throw their guns over it or just climb around, it's a nice detail that reminds the person experiencing it of how they perceive something would work in real life even if it's not actually that true, because the average person doesn't really have that knowledge etc. A prime example of this is fuel tanks blowing up when shot in video games, even though we all know how that works IRL. I know this is a bit of an autistic tangent but I find it to be a fascinating concept. Anyway, back to the main topic. I really overuse brackets here, huh? O-o)

Anyway, I don't know where that Aquila piece i added to the front came from, I swear it just materialised near my hobby desk and I decided to use it. I hope the tank is less bland now.

The little guy standing next to the Chimera is my 'test-model' for my Kasrkin proxy squad, the Catachan Devils. If you've played Dawn of War 2: Retribution (I haven't) you probably remember these guys. The one-liner spouting guys with the voices as rough as sand paper? yeah, them. Basically, instead of Kasrkin or Grenadiers, catachans have mini-Sly Marbo squads named after the apex predator of their homeworld itself. (This also means the Catachan 14th regiment, featured in Steve Lyons' Death World novel are called the Catachan Devils, they field Catachan Devils squads, they use Catachan Fang and Devil's Claw knives and are named after the insect Catachan Devils. That is some serious space wolf BS right there!)

They're going to have a lot more pouches, each will have a pauldron, a Lasgun in camouflage colours, lots of pouches (did I mention pouches?!), a black vest (and minimal jackets) a knife sheath and two grenades each, lots of foliage on their bases, and a few may even have streaks of camo on their skin (think Schwarzenegger in Commando!). Sticking with this, I plan on giving them more 'silent' weapons, e.g only one Sniper rifle, one Meltagun and one Plasmagun. I don't really like kasrkin to have like 7 special weapons and only 3 lasguns. That's just not right to me. I will be buying the special weapons kit and a couple old unhelmeted cadian heads to really make them unique too.

Also, I began stripping my metal miniatures and will be buying some more soon. Expect to see them all layed out on a t-shirt or something soon.
Peace!

Back in the 3rd edition codex "codex catachan" there was an entry to the catachan devils and while I've got no idea of their efficiency on the tabletop, the statelines and mostly the equipment options where broad. I'm quite certain fun stuff could be made with those

By the way if you don't have it already, try to get your hands on that 3rd edition Catachan codex. I got it for the fluff and pics and it is really great.

The SM Scout shotguns fit excellently. Those guys look really beefy with it!

And regarding the Chimera and realistic equipment: I feel you. I can't eloquently put it in words, but I've been there with some of my models too. Especially when I as a modeller try to think "where would this piece of equipment would make sense?" fully aware that there might be real life reasons why that wouldn't work at all.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Back in the 3rd edition codex "codex catachan" there was an entry to the catachan devils and while I've got no idea of their efficiency on the tabletop, the statelines and mostly the equipment options where broad. I'm quite certain fun stuff could be made with those

I've looked through a PDF of it, and re-checked the entry after reading your post. It's basically exactly what I'm going for! FURTHERMORE, there's an entry for a 'Deathworld Veterans Assault Team' who get to have lasguns, krak and frag grenades, shotguns, a flamer and a demo-charge. Basically exactly what I was going for on my krieg engineer proxies. What a coincidence.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
By the way if you don't have it already, try to get your hands on that 3rd edition Catachan codex. I got it for the fluff and pics and it is really great.

The SM Scout shotguns fit excellently. Those guys look really beefy with it!

And regarding the Chimera and realistic equipment: I feel you. I can't eloquently put it in words, but I've been there with some of my models too. Especially when I as a modeller try to think "where would this piece of equipment would make sense?" fully aware that there might be real life reasons why that wouldn't work at all.

thanks for the praise on the shotguns! I think they do work well with the scaling. I do have plans to get the Codex once all my major units are bought. That goes for the 10th edition and 3rd edition one.As for the 'making sense' part, it still has to follow some sense of internal logic, e.g wires and stuff. Even Ork kitbashes kind of have to follow it too, to an extent.

I also have some rather personal and sad news. one of the two guys who works at the not-so-local GW I have mentioned so many times is leaving this Tuesday. He's been there since I started painting my Blood Angels in the shop exactly one year ago. He's a super nice guy and really helped me come out of my shell socially, as well as just giving good advice and C&C on my models. I can probably make it to the shop on Tuesday, but tomorrow is for all intents and purposes the last time it'll be as I know it. I don't quite know why I'm posting this here, but I feel hobby progress threads are not always strictly about models painted, and sometimes deatils about the wider 'hobby life' find themselves slipping in. Point is, I'm going to paint my Command Squad, and I just needed somewhere to write this as it's a bit hard to swallow, I hope you can understand. That shop is at the center of a truly great community and it's naturally gonna miss one of the nicest guys there. See you all soon.

Cheers.

Completely understandable mate. In my local GW store there are also two dudes that always made me feel real welcome. I'm aware that they are paid to be friendly but still it's nice to be greeted by someone who is passionate about the hobby and a bit sad to see them go

Made some major progress on the Plasma Gunner for the Command Squad, and I made my Commissar's overcoat a little more snazzy. Moar pics soon.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Completely understandable mate. In my local GW store there are also two dudes that always made me feel real welcome. I'm aware that they are paid to be friendly but still it's nice to be greeted by someone who is passionate about the hobby and a bit sad to see them go

Yeah, I see what you mean. Worst thing is, they are genuinely nice guys! Sure, they probably wouldn't be as friendly without pay but they do what they like, and I legitimately get along with them. I mean it's admirable to see someone finding something else to do they genuinely enjoy and I am happy for him, but man am I gonna miss him a ton. Saturdays are basically the motivation to get through hard and long weeks, I'm sure we can all relate, and the past year of nice Saturdays was very fun. I'm genuinely happy I got to experience that, though. Shame, I guess but it's better to be happy about something happening in the first place than ending, and if you want to be sad about it, well that means it meant something and that's ultimately a good thing. No regrets here.

out of interest, where in Deutschland are you located?

Only realized you're from Germany too.. I'm from Berlin-Lichtenberg. Guess if you like to chat we can transfer this to PNs

@ shop-guys: What I really like about mine (and find really impressive), even though I only go there maybe every 2 months and don't play as that currently doesn't fit in my schedule, they remember my name and one of them even has quite a good idea what I collect and sometimes mentions things like "Hey, just you know, XY will get out of production soon. You mentioned you wanted to have one, didn't you?" or "before you order that resin model, it will come out in plastic soon..." and stuff like that. Also once I needed just a single Carnifex head and they just gave it to me from their bitsbox, which was pretty cool.

Back at topic: have you considered getting GWs skull box and use some of those as tactical rocks or battle trophys? the Necron and kroot skulls look life like enough that they could be relatively fresh trophies if painted right and clean skulls on a battle standard or something like that would look very Catachany I think.

I also can really recommend Citadels "Blood for the Blood god" and similar things if you want to make some of your Catachans look hurt.

Last but not least: if you like some thematic rough riders: Dark Elf Cold ones from the AoS line have a nice size to be kitbashed to carry a human sized rider. I did this myself some time ago with the older Cold one kit but they new should work too. In general AoS has some great big beasts than one can convert to all kind of crazy proxys and at least in my GW store they don't mind if your tank is a giant beetle, as long as the footprint more or less fits and it is a GW model.

One thing I always say: behind a shop desk, be it agricultural machines, minis, food, whatever, part of your job, of what you are paid for, is to be nice to people who come in.

This, just as a welder has the moral obligation to weld good because his paid to do that, any shop curator worth their wage MUST be friendly to customers otherwise they just don't do their job. Hopefully, while I never went to an flgs, most shops I ever went had people who indeed knew they where paid to be nice!

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Only realized you're from Germany too.. I'm from Berlin-Lichtenberg. Guess if you like to chat we can transfer this to PNs

@ shop-guys: What I really like about mine (and find really impressive), even though I only go there maybe every 2 months and don't play as that currently doesn't fit in my schedule, they remember my name and one of them even has quite a good idea what I collect and sometimes mentions things like "Hey, just you know, XY will get out of production soon. You mentioned you wanted to have one, didn't you?" or "before you order that resin model, it will come out in plastic soon..." and stuff like that. Also once I needed just a single Carnifex head and they just gave it to me from their bitsbox, which was pretty cool.

Back at topic: have you considered getting GWs skull box and use some of those as tactical rocks or battle trophys? the Necron and kroot skulls look life like enough that they could be relatively fresh trophies if painted right and clean skulls on a battle standard or something like that would look very Catachany I think.

I also can really recommend Citadels "Blood for the Blood god" and similar things if you want to make some of your Catachans look hurt.

Last but not least: if you like some thematic rough riders: Dark Elf Cold ones from the AoS line have a nice size to be kitbashed to carry a human sized rider. I did this myself some time ago with the older Cold one kit but they new should work too. In general AoS has some great big beasts than one can convert to all kind of crazy proxys and at least in my GW store they don't mind if your tank is a giant beetle, as long as the footprint more or less fits and it is a GW model.

I did toy with the idea of doing a skull on a pole as a banner for a command squad, not so sure about it now, I kinda like my Catachans to be clean, but maybe a wounded one might happen soon. I'm glad there are other helpful guys in GW stores though, good they remember you.


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 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
One thing I always say: behind a shop desk, be it agricultural machines, minis, food, whatever, part of your job, of what you are paid for, is to be nice to people who come in.

This, just as a welder has the moral obligation to weld good because his paid to do that, any shop curator worth their wage MUST be friendly to customers otherwise they just don't do their job. Hopefully, while I never went to an flgs, most shops I ever went had people who indeed knew they where paid to be nice!

yeah, I get what you're saying, I've been to a GW shop in Dublin and they are like that there, but back in Frankfurt these guys clearly like what they do. The manager can be a respectful and helpful guy (the kind of guy who never really smiles at people he doesn't know, but can joke around when he feels like it basically), pay notwithstanding but he definitely does see it as a job. The guy whose leaving, obviously I don't know him that well but he definitely enjoyed the hobby and the community aspect, I think he's genuinely a good guy, I'm decent at seeing through people's 'masks' and I can tell ya firsthand he doesn't even need to be paid to be friendly, (especially considering the job he’s moving on to is literally all about being nice and friendly to people) but like I said it's good he's moving on to something else if it will make him happer, variety is the spice of life I suppose.

Anyway, steadily working on the Command squad plasma gunner, next up is the Comm-link operator, then probably the sniper, commander, and the flag-bearer (i refuse to call that thing a 'colour sergeant', wtf even is that?). Need to think up some ideas for a unique two-colour flag scheme that feels grounded and not too silly. I'm torn between dark, desaturated red (word bearers red) and green (nocturne green or caliban green) or dark grey (eshin grey) and midtone green (straken green, death world forest or death guard green for example)

Just as a tip what helped me when undecided: make both flags in Powerpoint (you can use for example MS paints pipette function to get the exact colors after googling them) and print them out. Cut the little flags, glue them around toothpicks and just hold them to your minis. It gives you quite a good idea, how the finished flag would look like.

just as an example what I mean:


This way you can try out multiple designs fast without painting and overpainting and stripping away the paint from the plastic flags.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Just as a tip what helped me when undecided: make both flags in Powerpoint (you can use for example MS paints pipette function to get the exact colors after googling them) and print them out. Cut the little flags, glue them around toothpicks and just hold them to your minis. It gives you quite a good idea, how the finished flag would look like.

just as an example what I mean:

Spoiler:

This way you can try out multiple designs fast without painting and overpainting and stripping away the paint from the plastic flags.

That's a lot of work, I like it! Good advice, and that flag looks pretty good. Don't want to assume, but is that inspired by african or southeast asian flags? It certainly has the look of a militaristic republic, it looks like a convincing fictional country that's been in conflicts (kind of like Zanzibar Land in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake which I highly recommend too).

IT's basically just the Angolan flag slightly modified. Because they have a pretty epic flag