A bit rusty on pigments

I've just finished the first run at one of my Chimeras.  It's mostly finished, but there are thing I may go redo.  I went for a pale gray (fortress), same as the Valkyrie, but think I may have been better sticking with the darker gray of the sentinel (codex).  Also had a problem I've not noticed before, I need to seal after using pigments.  I rusted the model up some and then wanted to dry brush deneb stone to give it a dusty/dirty feel.  Well the rust pigment started turning it into Deneb Pink.  Note added:  Always do a quick sealer coat after pigments.  The rust itself was a bit of an issue too.  Managed to go way to heavy on one side, doesn't look too good.  Think I'll have to layer a bit of Fortress Gray over the top to tone it down some.  Lastly, the tracks.  They look amazing until I break out the sealer.  All I need to do is start shaking the can and they go all crappy.  I need to spend some time in Secret Weapon HQ, or bug Sirus over at GEG and see what they do to not have the can of sealer destroy your hopes and dreams decent looking weathering.

Cadian 42nd

I seem to spend most of my time painting stuff for or with my kids, but I do have my own slowly expanding army too.  It's now made it to a legal formation, and just over 1000 points.  Badly unbalanced, but what the hell, its there, and 6 months ago 80% of it didn't exist yet.  Currently it consists of:
HQ: Lord Commissar
Characters:  Guardsman Marbro (comped by a Rogue Trooper figure)
Elites:  Snipers (ratlings), Psyker Battle Squad
Troops: PCS, 2 Infantry squads with AC heavy weapons, Special Weapons squad (grenade launchers), and a Penal Legion
Dedicated Transports: 2 Chimeras, one standard and one upgraded (turret flamer, armor, dozer)
Fast Attack: Scout Sentinel, Armored Sentinel with plasma cannon, Vendetta
Heavy Support: Leman Russ Battle Tank

The PCS with attached commissar.  As you can see I went for pretty standard Cadian colors.

A couple of sergeants and special weapons troops as another example of my unit colors.

A penal legion squad, made of some really cool OOP Necromunda minis with a lot of custom weapons.

And a Psyker Battle Squad.  Again, OOP Necromunda mini.  I figured a bunch of bald guys with scars on their heads would work for psykers.

Lastly, a shot of my scout sentinel as an example of my vehicle colors.  Really pleased with this one, it came out great.  Weapons are all magnetized so they can be swapped around as needed.

So there you go.  Hopefully they will see some action soon, rather than just being the fodder for my kids when the have huge, and rule free, battles.  :)

Name that mini!

This guy is currently finding work as the custodian of my penal legion squad.  For the old mini geeks out there, anyone remember what he's from?  It's a citadel miniature, but which game?

Dreadinel. No, Sentinaught

Made this puppy a long time ago.  Not sure where 'commissar riding dreadnaught with some extra guns' really fits in the rules.  Let me know if I just missed that page in the IG codex.  Wanted to share though as I still think its a fun conversion.

Sgt Telion

This is one Fletcher has wanted for a while.  Sgt Telion to go with his scouts.  Figure came together pretty well.  At least a little better than this photo shows.  Nice mini though.  Easy to paint if you don't glue the gun on, and plenty of character.

Sternguard WIP 2

Yeah OK, probably should have shown more stages of the work.  These were my standard work flow and I'm happy with them now they are done.  The conversions (all have at least a mild conversion) were the most fun part.  After that they were primed gray, then flat coated Mordian Blue, white and black.  The blue was then layered with ultramarine blue, and I started adding the details.  Mithril silver drybrush on weapons, still my favorite way, and picking out all the other bits like the seals, skulls and such.  Once detail was complete they all got a Payne's Gray wash, and then a deneb stone drybrush (I like my armor dirty looking).

All that is missing is some grass tufts on the base, and chapter markings.  Good enough for now though.

Sternguard WIP

Haven't done any work in progress stuff so I thought I'd start one.  I picked up a space marine combat squad for dirt cheap on ebay (less than half the GW price).  The ultramarine army I've been building and painting for Fletch has 2 sternguard squads, but both are 5 man.  I'd like them to be 10-man squads.  Plus, I really like the model making.  Anyway, this combat squad, plus a few bits were going to become 5 bolter armed sternguard.  I really don't like the standard GW pose for SM, so one thing I was going to be working on was avoiding that.
 

So here they are assembled.  First from the left I cut the wrists and shoulders to allow me to bring the gun up into a more aimed pose.  The gun I modded to become a combi-flamer with a box magazine.  Second guy has the normal GW pose, but again the gun was modded to be a combi-flamer with a box magazine.  Middle guy has a firing pose, gun is modded to be a combi-plasma with a belt magazine.  Looks really cool, I'll do that again.  The last two I cut up some other marine arms to avoid the across the chest pose.  First has grenades in his other hand, second has a bolt gun and bolt pistol.  I'm really happy with how these came out.  They are now all gray primered.  I'll get another few shots as they go through the painting process.

The whole lot

Here's a quick shot of Fletcher's whole army.  A little over 3000 points, but not all of those are playable (for instance 5 HQ units).  We have a land raider crusader, two razorbacks, 2 dreadnoughts, a terminator squad, a scout squad, 2 sternguard squads, an assault squad, a vanguard squad, a devastator squad, and 4 10-man tactical squads.  Oh yeah, and the 5 HQ units, Captain, Captain in terminator armor, Librarian in terminator armor, Chaplain and Master of the Forge.

Another batch complete

Just finished (well mostly) another batch of 35 ultramarine's for one of my kids.  This now means that for a while at least all his stuff is painted.  I said mostly, they need a little touch up here and there as well as chapter and squad markings.  95% done though.  Below we have an assault squad, devastator squad, Captain in terminator armor, Chaplain, and tactical squads 3 and 4.  The last shot is of one of the flamer marines.  Just as an example of the great character that GW often put into their minis.

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Old school minis 2

Had this one sitting around for a while, and finally took the time to give it a decent paint job.  Space Marine Exo Armor, the Pre-Heresy version of terminator armor.  I just went dark gray for the paints (black base, adeptus battle gray, codex gray, paynes gray wash, fortress gray dry brush) to really make the guy looked old.  Came across pretty well.  I'll replace this photo later with one in better light so I can at least use a higher aperture and get everything in focus.  The base is a Secret Weapon Ruined Temple which seemed eminently suitable here.  I was going to use them for my Dark Angel Deathwing, but those look like they are just becoming Ultramarines so I can use the Ruined Temple bases for something else.

OK, a few more photos that show this thing off a bit better. 

Valkyries

On the way home I was listening to a disc that had Ride of the Valkyries on it.  Made me wonder, when you hear that music, what do you think of?

Melta equipped Veteran squad being flown on a tank hunt.
A huge viking woman with a cleavage you could ski down, ready to escort you to Valhalla.
Helicopters flying out the sun, the smell of napalm in the morning.
Flying Nazis.  In a station wagon.

Me?  Definitely the flying Nazis.

Rogue Trooper

Got around to repainting my old Rogue Trooper mini.  Think he'll have to be a Marbo counts as once I've finished him up.

The IG get some armor

I was at the FLGS last weekend and there were a couple of cheap Russes in the the consignment case.  My slowly accumulating IG army was completely lacking in anything for the heavy slots so I thought this would be an excuse to add something.  I chose the better looking of the two and took it home for an appointment with some Simple Green.

Well, those weren't regular paints on it.  I'm used to the paints flaking off after 24hours in the Simple Green.  This time though the paint instead went to mush and took a lot of time to remove with a toothbrush.  And that was the topcoat.  The primer stayed in place, and I was starting to realize the funny surface on parts of this model were from the primer being way over applied.  Detail was completely lost in some places. Add to that the large amounts of battle damage that I hadn't noticed in the store and things aren't looking too great.  Still, it was cheap.  Photo below is the nasty layer of crap left after 48hours of simple green, a toothbrush and a file.

I had the model down to the funky looking primer, busted off the sponsons, some accessories, and some of the extra armor, replaced the lascannon with a heavy bolter, and repaired some of the battle damage.  Now I'm down to a basic LR BT but its still kind of funky looking.  In the end I decided I'd just go heavy on the dirt/grime look.  I went with the same gray (fortress over adeptus) I used on one of the sentinals, then put a lot of fairly thick wash over it.  Once that was dry I broke out the SecretWeapon pigments to dirty it up more.  Exhaust black on vents, exhausts and weapons, iron oxide (watered down) all over the place and then terracotta earth and metallic iron (from the treads tutorial I'd been wanting to try) on the treads.  All looks good.  The yellow panel on the side of the turret is where unit decals will go.

Until I sealed it.  I was pretty gentle this time but I still seem to have lost pigments in some areas.  I'll redo those and respray afterwards.  The thing that really seemed to vanish was the metallic iron.  Second shot shows some of the rusting, as well as the nasty bobbly surface of the tank.

Exciting Status Update

Well OK, maybe not, but things have been gradually becoming a little more colorful.  So below is the current status of the armies.

Morgan's Orks
Primed and ready
Battle Wagon, 3 Killa Kans, 5 Storm Boys, 25 Boyz, 5 Nobs, 5 Burnas, 1 Trukk
Under way
35 Boyz, 10 nobz, 3 Deffkopters, 2 Trukks, Looted Wagon, 5 Lootas, War Trakk,
Done
Warboss, 10 Gretchin and a runt herder, couple of ammo squigs.

Fletcher's Ultramarines
Needs Assembling
10 terminators
Primed and ready
10 scouts

Done
55 Marines, 5 Scouts, Scout Bike, 5 Termies, Captain, Termie Captain, Chaplain, Termie Librarian, 5 Vanguard, 15 Sternguard, Land Raider Crusader, 2 dreadnoughts, 2 Razorbacks

Marcus's IG
Primed and ready
10 veterans, 5 command

Done
Vendetta, Leman Russ Battle Tank, 2 Sentinels, 10 Psyker Battle Squad, 10 Penal Legion, 3 Snipers, 2 AC heavy weapons squads, 25 guardsmen, 5 IG command squad, 1 Commissar


Marcus's Rabble (stuff I picked up because it was cheap and looked interesting to paint)
Primed and ready 
6 Tau XV25s, and 20 Eldar Guardians
Done
Necron Destroyer