Blood Angels Army Project (pic carpet bombing)

[Inq28M]

Oh man that predator is beautiful! Great idea being able to swap all the components to make it into a rhino as well! Going to have to have a flick back through the pages of this thread :)

[Meph]

Cheers! Well, i suggest to go into your profile preferences and put the # of posts per page to maximum. Makes for easier reading. ;)

[Brakkart]

Cheers! Well, i suggest to go into your profile preferences and put the # of posts per page to maximum. Makes for easier reading. ;)

Yeah definately a good bit of advice that, reduces the thread down to 13 pages from something like 45+ which a lot easier reading.

Utterly beautiful Baal Pred there and I'm loving that Camo scheme on the Land Raider. Didn't think I would, but the red, black and that shade of green works really well together and ties it all in nicely with the rest of your army.

[Khornie]

so camouflage, eh? no problem to me, in rouge trader there were marines with camo on tanks and even on their armor, btw. the badab war was mentioned there in the first place, also with camo patterns for involved chapters, as seen on a youtube-review of rouge trader

[Meph]

Yeah, those camouflage patterns stuck with me every since I first same them when they appeared in WD and 40K books back in the day. I makes sense that even Marines resort to camouflage when the need calls for it. Scouts have camo cloaks... So an anti-armour Land Raider is not too far-fetched. I can easily imagine a campaign where the marines are severely outnumbered by an armoured opponent that they would whittle down the enemy by luring armoured patrols into ambushes. Blast the armour in heavy crossfire and then send in the jump troops to finish them off.

I got sucked away in the holiday season a bit so not much painting done. But the last few days I did manage to get the secondary colours painted in and apply the decals. The decals just need some more blending in and then I can start the weathering. I also rediscovered why I don't like doing freehand all that much as painting in that BA symbol on the right door nearly gave me a heart attach, and then i still cheated by first applying a black decal because I didn't have any white ones left in white...

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6767.JPG

And a merry Christmas and happy New Year to all! I hope the hangovers and indigestions were manageable. :)

[Psychosplodge]

I finally finished the Baal Predator. To be honest, I'm not overly happy with the weathering powders but it'll have to do. The fact of needing to seal them with varnish so they can be used for gaming and transport really messes with the look of them. Although it's not necessarily bad-looking, the look of weathering powders that are just fixated with turpentine or pigment fixer is a whole lot better. But practicality trumps looks this time.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6746.JPG
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6756.JPG
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6761.JPG

Those are beautiful tanks.

[Meph]

Cheers, mate!

Still haven't touched a brush this week and the weekend seems to get a bit full as well, but I have been staring at this on my desk.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6779.JPG

Sanguinary Priest! Of, course, no bare head for me, no sirree. After reading through the new codex, it dawned on me that these guys would be great with an assault squad, as they give +1WS to the unit.
So; jumpack tpo keep up, probably magnetized so I can swap 'm out with a regular backpack. I though about maybe incorporating the apothecary backpack details onto the jump pack but then decided against it. I want to keep the plausibility intact of it being a strapon jet engine, so putting a search light and vials on it doesn't feel right.
Then an upgrade in weaponry, namely a grav pistol and a power sword, or perhaps the axe?
And the chalice I though to give it a belt and hang it around the waist or shoulder. The way they're described in the fluff, they're not mere cup, but hold many mechanisms for storing and filtering blood. So it seems reasonable that they can be sealed as well.

The change of weapons will give a sufficiently different look to the standard model I think. Any thoughts on choice of sword or axe? Or which helmet? I would have preferred to give him a MkIV or a beaky, but the collar is pretty tight and only a short snouted one will fit. (One has a laurel wreath, the other has some short spikes and the cross on the forehead.)

[Darren Richardson]

I'd use the helmet with the Laurels and use the chain sword, after all how you gonna cut through armour and perform amputations otherwise?

[Meph]

Hmmm. well, he's got a mini chainblade on his right arm. That seems suitable. ^_^

[Peter Zuidgeest]

Again nice work on those tanks.
You got me inspired to pimp my angels!
Thanks! :)

[Darren Richardson]

Hmmm. well, he's got a mini chainblade on his right arm. That seems suitable. ^_^

What for terminator armour? :p

Seriously I prefer that sword of your three choices.

[Psychosplodge]

Have you got the company champion helmet? Would that work with the sanguinary priest?

[Meph]

Again nice work on those tanks.
You got me inspired to pimp my angels!
Thanks! :)

Cheers! Inspiration is always the best praise. you humble me, good sir. :D


What for terminator armour? :p
Seriously I prefer that sword of your three choices.

I think for termy armour, he'll need a melta-cutter. :D The chainsword is actually just to show the original arm. The plan is to use him with the assault squad so there are already chainswords a plenty. I thougt a power weapon would nicely complement the rest of the meat grinders and the sarge's power fist. ANd, it'll give him a different look that the stock model.


Have you got the company champion helmet? Would that work with the sanguinary priest?
Sadly, no. :( I was kinda hoping for that because I have a few variant heads of that 'knightly' champion head. Not even all MkVII heads fit, the ones that have some fatter sideburn-pipes are just that itty bitty too wide for the helmet to turn. It's only a select few MkVII heads than can fit in that collar, and even then it's pretty tight.

[Wolfshade]

Cammo land raider, love it.

[Darren Richardson]

Sadly, no. :( I was kinda hoping for that because I have a few variant heads of that 'knightly' champion head. Not even all MkVII heads fit, the ones that have some fatter sideburn-pipes are just that itty bitty too wide for the helmet to turn. It's only a select few MkVII heads than can fit in that collar, and even then it's pretty tight.

I tell you what might work, these babies

http://maxmini.eu/conversion-bits/head-swaps/steam-knights-heads-bits

I've used some on my Marines and they are slimmer then most Marine helmets.

http://maxmini.eu/image/cache/data/products/bits/MXMCB014_steamknightsheads-441x315.jpg

[Meph]

Hehehe, I actually have those as well. :D But I overlooked them, good idea. I'll see how they look on that priest.

[Blackadder]

Love the subtle weathering on those tanks. Learning how to do that is high on my to-do list.

[Meph]

Cheers, mate. Don't hesitate to poke my brain.

Still not much time to devote to painting during the week but I manage to sneak in a few minutes at a time here and there.
The Land Raider has received some sponge weathering, some brush touch-ups on the hull chipping and battle damage. And the model's received a varnish coat, oil wash, and varnish coat again. Hence the shininess.
And I finally managed to cobble something together to stick on the Company banner. With those large, self-printed decals being hard to handle, I deliberately left some reserve space on the top. I didn't want to risk too much with those wrinkles but the decal actually settled itself quite nicely without too much effort.

With applying these large decals, you have to apply them smooth and fast, and very accurately. Having to reposition them risks breaking up the print as the tiniest stretching will crack and flake the non-flexible print. As you can see with the top-right corner... Luckily it was just plain red there. So now I just have to paint up the rest of the banner and blend in the decal.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6798.JPG
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6806.JPG

[Blackadder]

I wish I had time to paint...............

[Meph]

Well, halve the amount of rivets on your builds and you've got a sea of time. ^_^

[Psychosplodge]

Has that LandRaider got the FW reinforced armour kit on it?

[Meph]

Indeed it does! I prefer the more closed look on the tracks.

[Psychosplodge]

Yeah it does make it look better.

[Meph]

Alrighty. The banner is done, pretty much. Now that I'm seeing it on photo, it does need some little cleanups here and there. And then a varnish coat is it's too shiny atm. Maybe I'll even give the banner a matte coating, I think that will give it a more 'cloth' look.

Whaddayathink?

And the Land Raider is currently drying on the radiator. I applied some rust with some oil paints and weathering powder, more than I did with the previous tanks and I'm eager too see it dried. :)

Anywho...

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6812.JPG

[Levaticus]

Looks amazing, glad to see the captain and Librarian with the command squad.

[Meph]

Cheers, mate!

And there's the progress of the weekend on the Land Raider. I added some rust and grease and did some cleanup. It needs some touch-ups here and there and then it's on to some soot and dirt.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6826.JPG
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6835.JPG

[Darren Richardson]

a truely breathtaking army Meph, your banner is outstanding, you really should enter it into this years Golden Demon...

[Meph]

Right, sorry for the lack of responses. Around December i kinda fell off the edge of the Earth there for a while but I clawed myself back.
Some much-needed vacation time offered the opportunity to pick up a brush again after 8 months of not painting anything.

First off, I chiseled off the caked on dust on that Land Raider. It was stored on top of a shelf, in a box without a lid... That thing was almost grey.
But after cleaning it up and scrutinizing it, it seemed like it just needed the lenzes done. So that what I did, all umpteen of them. Dang, after so long of not painting, it did took some time to get my zoom-o-vison going again to paint those tiny things. The photos are a bit over-lit, but hey, they're just WIP shots

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7004.JPG


And then some time ago, a new Blood Angels Codex came out and i was a bit shocked to see the assault squad being bumped back into the fast attack section again, suddenly leaving me without a compulsory troop choice (I had the tac. squad and the assault squad for that).
So last week, to pass some time I thought to quickly paint up some scouts I've had lying around since forever. I actually never liked the minis that much, mainly because of their over-sized and square heads. Luckily I remembered I bought some guard Scion heads off of Ebay last year. i scraped off the skulls, trimmed their necks, and voilà!

With them being infiltrators and snipers, I didn't want to paint them red so I experimented with some camo green that received three brown washes, and just kept the shoulder pad red that will have the chapter symbol.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6984.JPG

And after that I gave the leather sections two dark red glazes and painted in the details using muted colours. They've now been assembled so I can give them and oil paint wash (after the decals have been put into place). The camo cloaks gave me some pause as I didn't really know what to do with them but in the end I just decided to stipple on some camo using a medium drybrush. I then gave them a light drybrush highlight and a brown wash.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_6995.JPG

These models are definitely not the best I've ever done, some tiny errors here and there and some mold lines, but then again these were very low on my priority list and act as just a filler for the army. I've bought a box of the new BA tactical squad and I'm planning assemble it with some grav weaponry.

Sowhaddayathaink?

[Dan Taylor]

Those scouts are looking awesome, where is the power fist from on there? I can't place it.

[Meph]

Cheers. That power fist is from the LEGION MKIV POWER WEAPONS SET (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-BE/Legion-MKIV-Power-Weapons-Set) from Forgeworld. The FW marines are generally a little bit slimmer than standard ones. Same with those resin weapons.

[Wolfshade]

I always love seeing camo troops :)

Awesome paint job

[Psychosplodge]

Like the paint scheme, not sure about the heads or not. Maybe they'll grow on me.

[Mads Hedensted]

Welcome back good to see some more of you painting. I love you style, but i kainda hate you :) I have started my own Blood angels army partly becorse of your sons of sanguinius but it's a but depressing to see your work, I'll have a long way to get anywhere near your standard of painting.

Ment as a compliment, :D you are a great inspiration.

[40kGamer]

Right, sorry for the lack of responses. Around December i kinda fell off the edge of the Earth there for a while but I clawed myself back.
Some much-needed vacation time offered the opportunity to pick up a brush again after 8 months of not painting anything.

Welcome back to the land of the painting! Health issues have kept me from doing much this year but after seeing this update I'm feeling the urge to get back at it. I love the camo schemes and the natural colours on the scouts is ace! Are those vallejo colours on them?

[Meph]

I always love seeing camo troops :)
Awesome paint job

And I must say, it was a nice change from painting red as well. Although I did an AT-ST as well, for Imperial Assault. So camo on the scouts and grey on the chuickenwalker, yay! :)


Like the paint scheme, not sure about the heads or not. Maybe they'll grow on me.

Let's hope not, or the Inquisition will come after you!

*Badum-tsh!*


Welcome back good to see some more of you painting. I love you style, but i kainda hate you :) I have started my own Blood angels army partly becorse of your sons of sanguinius but it's a but depressing to see your work, I'll have a long way to get anywhere near your standard of painting.
Ment as a compliment, :D you are a great inspiration.

I feel humbled by the praise, mate! But don't feel daunted. Drybrushing and washes, that's what it is, really. For the rest it's just a matter of taking care not to rush things. Y'know, 3-5 drybrushed highlights instead of one sloppy one, same with weathering, also a limited colour palette helps to keep a unified look. And for the rest, experimenting. I mean, originally I wanted to keep the cloth areas black but I didn't like my drybrushed highlight on there at all, so I decided to cover it using a dark red glaze, liked it, gave it a second one, and voilà! Suddenly we had a dark red burgundy. Patience and persistence are the main ingredients.


Welcome back to the land of the painting! Health issues have kept me from doing much this year but after seeing this update I'm feeling the urge to get back at it. I love the camo schemes and the natural colours on the scouts is ace! Are those vallejo colours on them?

Have at it, man! Even if it's just a drybrush or assembly of something. For me it has been 8 months as well. I'll make you feel beter for sure.

Well, that main colour on the scouts is a home brewn mix of some colours, both GW's and Vallejo's. It's actually pretty damn close to 'Death World Forest', if you would add some neutral grey to it. My mix is basically, some muted green, some warmer greens, some pale browns, toned down with a neutral grey, and then thinned with demineralized water, some thinner, and some Klear. It's the same colour I use for the rest of the marines' robes.

[Psychosplodge]

Let's hope not, or the Inquisition will come after you!

*Badum-tsh!*


http://i.imgur.com/9uur3eo.png

[Meph]

rofl, indeed I did not expect thàt. :D

[Meph]

W00h00! They're done & based. The photos are not 100% but pretty close to what they look IRL. I mainly use natural light, augmented with a daylight LED lamp, but the weather outside is a bit dodgy, cloudy, not cloudy, cloudy so it was a bit of a hassle to set the camera just right. The little coat of gloss varnish on the lenses also makes them look a bit darker than they really are.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7022.JPG
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7012.JPG

And I was also a bit sidetracked by this. A two-day quickie painting session to paint up the RPG crew of my mates & me. Warhammer Fantasy RPG, 2nd edition (the last of the WHFRP %-game systems).
Our GM also keeps a blog with out sessions & characters. Feel free too have a looksee on http://whfrp.weebly.com/

From left to right:
-Abelhelm Reichert; Gambler turned Highwayman
-Mandred Vogel; Celestial Wizard
-Lothar El-Kaloffi; Protagonist turned Racketeer-merchant
-Otfried Osten; Priest of SIgmar
-Gotrak Mittnachson; Pitfighter turned on the path of Giant Slayer after losing a Book of Grudges.
-Felix Vogel; bonepicker turned Cat Burglar
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7032.JPG

P.S.: I do hate painting flesh & faces. Long live helmeted Mahweens!

[40kGamer]

Very cool looking characters! Never played WFRPG but had some mates that enjoyed it. If I remember correctly it's quite easy to find yourself dead in a game. The scouts look great finished up too. Really like the camo scheme with just the shoulder heraldry.

[Wolfshade]

I may have to copy your scheme for my scouts, I always thought ti was strange to have scouts in "battle dress".

[Brakkart]

Welcome back Meph! Loving the camo Scouts, might have to borrow that idea for when I do the unit of sniper Scouts for my army.

[Meph]

Very cool looking characters! Never played WFRPG but had some mates that enjoyed it. If I remember correctly it's quite easy to find yourself dead in a game. The scouts look great finished up too. Really like the camo scheme with just the shoulder heraldry.

Warhammer Fantasy is a cool RPG, very grimdark, insidious, and very deadly if you don't watch out. :)


I may have to copy your scheme for my scouts, I always thought ti was strange to have scouts in "battle dress".

Welcome back Meph! Loving the camo Scouts, might have to borrow that idea for when I do the unit of sniper Scouts for my army.

Thanks, guys. Don't hold back now! :D

In the meantime I've been slowly painting along. No pics yet, but the Vanguard Squad's reds are almost done and then they're ready for the tedious treatment, the blacking out of the details. Not looking forward to that bit...

[StraightSilver]

It's been great catching up on your plog - I've missed loads.

Loving the camo on the BA Land raider - looks really cool and reminds me of the orignal Rogue Trader Blood Angels.

I also love the Scion heads on your scouts. I might "borrow" that idea for some Drop Vets. :)

And looking forward to seeing your Vanguard Vets, lovely models, I've been putting off painting mine so will look at yours instead. :)

[Meph]

Alrighty, it's been a few weeks since the last update but there's a good reason for that.
The last few weeks I've had wood, lots of it, and it needed a lot of attention, sometimes with power tools.

Badum-tsh!

A small renovation project to replace my old computer desk (my rickety old drawing desk re-purposed many a year ago), and the current TV cupboard by bespoke, self-made PC desk/TV cupboard combo. The main tablets are 60mm MDF (that's 2.36 inches for you colonials) with wood veneer with some thinner 24mm (0.944") shelves for the digital apparati and external HDD's. Sturdy enough for a twerking elephant, and theft-proof unless you have a couple of Scottish strongmen handy to move it.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7178.JPG

Anywho, that is just my excuse for not painting in a while and I should have it in place this weekend. As the DIY work started winding down, I picked up a brush again and slowly blacked out the details of the Vanguard Squad I've been working on.
With that tedious bit behind me, the fun stuff lies ahead again, the detailing, weathering, and finishing. Time to crack open the pot of home-mixed gold again! Yay!

Oh, and I also started to arrange/assemble the Sanguinary priest again, and today I've bought a librarian in terminator armour, just because I felt the need to drill out his face and replace it by a helmet. Damn straight, no helmet-less war hippies in my army!

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7182.JPG

[bloodangel 83]

Meph, nice work so far.

[Meph]

Cheers, mate! I'm hoping to get something done over the weekend. :D

[Meph]

I managed to slap on some paint. The bronze/gold base colour has been applied, and so has the Vallejo Smokey ink.
Next up, I'll drybrush the golds and then move on to the rest of the secondary colours.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7205.JPG

[Meph]

Secondary colours on. They are ready for assembly & oil paints.
If all goes well, I might be able to finish them by this week's end.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7212.JPG

[Meph]

Vanguard Squad finished. They came our rather nice, evenifIdosaysomyself. Whaddayathink?

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7220.JPG
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7232.JPG

Next up, I borrowed a large tripod for the camera and I have some old unused A1 drawing paper. Time to take some full army shots!

[Brakkart]

Ohh very nice indeed. And yay for full army shots, looking forward to seeing those!

[Meph]

Cheers, mate!

Here are the army shots. It's become clear that my little camera is not suited for this, but myeah, at least it's fun to see all the models together.
I've been thinking about buying a Lytro camera soonish. That'll warrant a revisit. :)

I put them in an imgur gallery here (http://imgur.com/a/qXFOK). They're uncompressed photos so don't hesitate to right-click-open-in-new-tab 'm for full zoom-o-vision on the fuzziness.

And here's the rest of the galleries (http://postwarvandal.imgur.com/), all high-res.

[Brakkart]

That is one hell of an impressive looking force Meph. What's next then? I think I recall you mentioning threatening a Storm Talon with a hacksaw in a previous post.

Also out of curiosity, how many points does that lot add up too now?

[Meph]

What's next? Well weekend I'm going to Crisis in Antwerp and I'll pick up a Forgeworld order that they'll bring for pickup at the show.

Some FW Blood Angels parts and a Deimos Vindicator. man, I've always adored that chunky look of that tank, and I prefer the look of the gun way more than the standard model.

And I'll use of the FW heads for a Sanguinary Priest I'll start painting next week. After the Priest I have a shortlist with next projects and I'm indecisive as to which to paint so I'll trow it on the chopping block here.

-BA Tac. Squad assembled using the newest kit and bits I still have. Still doubting the heavy weapon. I like the look of the flamer, but my army has poor AA capabilities I think so a missile launcher with Flak Missiles seems like the logical choice. What would you guys take?

-A FW Dreadnought drop pod, assembled and ready for paint.

-The 5 Terminators that came with the DeathStorm box (I have the entire box of minis), kitted out with FW shoulder pads to up my current termy squad to 10.

-The Deimos Vindicator

-Convert a Storm Talon with the same zeal as with my Storm Raven, but since BA's can't actually take them it'll have to be from another chapter. Raptors perhaps? And go for a 'true(-ish)' modern warplane scheme. Russian splinter camo (http://www.ausairpower.net/VVS/Su-35S-KnAAPO-2P-7S.jpg) or maybe their latest airforce scheme? (http://immortaltoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/su-35-S-5.jpg)


What's your pick? It might help decide. :D


Also, currently, a rough guestimate puts the force at +-4500-5000 moints with all minis equipped wysywyg. I'm hoping to do a big battle with the lot of them soonish.
When that happens I'm for sure going to take lots of pics using my new camera (https://store.lytro.com/collections/the-first-generation-lytro-camera). I just got and this weekend (Sunday probably) I'm going to experiment with to see if I can tale decent miniature photos with it. Living pictures with a dynamic focus change. My inner geek jumps for joy!

[Brakkart]

Ohh quite the list there. I'd have to go with the splinter camo scheme of those two, it just looks way better, though I don't envy you the masking job you'll have to do to pull it off. If your army is lacking in AA capability then a flak missile launcher is a very sensible choice and you've pretty much got the other heavy weapons covered in your squads anyway so it'll add some more variety too. I like the Deimos Vindi too, nice squat chunky look to it though rather fond of the standard Vindi as well cos of the siege shield.

If you're gonna have some allies to make use of the Storm Talon I can highly reccomend using the Heavy option for that contingent on a Stalker. They shred flyers!

[Meph]

Hmmm, good idea! A small secondary detachment for some specific models. Food for though...

I couldn't contain myself so I took some test photos with the models on my cupboard. Direct lighting, not diffused or anything and I let the Lytro software process the image automatically for colour and contrast & such.
And I must say, not too shabby...
<iframe width='600' height='635' src='https://pictures.lytro.com/postwarvandal/pictures/1066641/embed?token=78bfd14a-84a4-11e5-956d-22000b99817a' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen scrolling='no'></iframe>
[EDIT]^Hmmm so it seems the webcode for embedded pictures doesn't work on BOLS, too bad :-/

Here's a gallery with more of them:
https://pictures.lytro.com/postwarvandal/albums/190455

[Blackadder]

Vanguard Squad finished. They came our rather nice, evenifIdosaysomyself. Whaddayathink?

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7220.JPG
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7232.JPG

Next up, I borrowed a large tripod for the camera and I have some old unused A1 drawing paper. Time to take some full army shots!

Beautiful painting..........

[40kGamer]

Loving the vets!

[Psychosplodge]

Yep, they've turned out beautifully.

[Meph]

Cheers, guys!

Oh, and I noticed I didn't put the correct view settings to the Lytro gallery, so here it is again. Click on a pic, and then click anywhere on the photo to change the focus.

https://pictures.lytro.com/postwarvandal/albums/190455

[Meph]

Alrighty, next project is lined up. The Sanguinary priest, with all the parts laid out. I've sorely wanted to use another helmet but the collar just doesn't allow for any other helmet. MKIV are just that itsy bitsy to long, same with those new, cool FW helmets for Blood Angels. :-/

Also, I've been breaking my head over the colour scheme for this guys and I can use some extra opinions on the possible schemes.
The two main things to keep in mind is I'd like to give him another scheme than the standard one, and I'd like to keep my palette as limited as possible in lines of the rest of the army.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7278.JPG

The options:
-Standard; white armour, red robes. Frankly, it looks good but I want something different. It also seems to striking and it would draw the attention over the other HQ units, namely the Captain and the Librarian I already have.

-Inverted standard; red armour, white robes. Would look good, but again it would seem to attract too much attention compared to the other HQ's.

-Red armour, drab-khaki robes. This would keep the scheme in lines with the army but it would also need a touch of white to denote him as an apothecary. Not 100% required seeing as I already made the Command Squad Apothecary already full red with just a silver disk on his shoulder pad. But what in white then? The right arm & shoulder pad? The Right arm + helmet? The Torso and Helmet?

-White armour, drab robes. Same gripes as above, but then maybe the left arm red? The left arm and helmet?

The thing is that my gut says to have a decent amount of red on the mini, and that the robes should be the same grey-green as all the other 'command' units in the army; the sergeants, the captain, the librarian. I've put that theme in the army and my designer bones scream I should keep it. But the worry is that visually it might be a bit of a cacophony with too many colours going on when your eye glides over the mini. White arm, drab robe, white helmet, red torso, drab robe, red arm...

Most likely though, I will go in that direction because in general, an army's insignia and iconography tend to be consequent across all units, no matter the visual finesse. So in the end it might(should) convey a sense of authenticity. What are your thoughts on this?

[Brakkart]

Mmmm not an easy one to solve for the reasons you've given Meph. Have you considered just having the background part of the two shoulder pads as white? That would limit the amount of white on the mini as you want, plus would make the scultped details on those pads pop a bit more, and also not be duplicating yourself, given you already did the colour arm scheme on the Librarian. Perhaps a central stripe on the helmet in white also?

[Meph]

Hmmmm... not bad, not bad. That's definitely something to contemplate, but it'd be tiny white bits though. the detailing takes up most of the space, and that'll be gold/bronze.

I was kinda thinking to make the shoulder pad rims white, and the nartheticum on his forearm. But I like the idea of a stripe. Actually, the helmet does have an 'X' of the forehead (it's a death company helmet by origin), I can make the 'X' white.

[Brakkart]

Ohh yeah the rims would work better, with the narthecium too (glad you can remember the name of that thing, I always forget it and just call it a chain gauntlet cos 40k has chain everything else). White narthecium works well, as that'd make the helix symbol on it stand out really well.

[Meph]

White details it will be. :) Especially now with some paint on it became clear that that's the right way to go.
Sadly, progress hasn't been as swift as intended due to an injury of my right arm preventing me from doing long painting sessions. But hey, bit by bit, that's my motto.
The red's on and the robe's been done. Time for blacking out the details! Luckily it's not a whole squad, so the tedious bit won't be long, yay.

Also, the keen eye may spot that it's not the default backpack for the mini. The reason for that is quite simple; haste. In my unbridled enthusiasm to get this mini going I glued the magnet in the wrong way, doh! Luckily, a normal backpack, a Dark Angel termy command squad bit, a file, and some greenstuff later I've got a worthy alternative.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7281.JPG
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7286.JPG


Onwards!

[Psychosplodge]

would it not make more sense to only use one magnet and a washer so it doesn't matter which way up you glue the magnet?

[Meph]

Why yes, yes it would. *cough*

Note to self: stop by a DIY store asap.

:D

[Blackadder]

Devil With the Blue Dress On:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVbr37_yPeY

Anxious to see where you're going with the blue dress (Not my choice) but who's to argue with the perfection so far :thumbs: What's with the multi focus images!!!:eek: What a great effect!

[Meph]

Hehehe, a Librarian string onto the battlefield with that soundtrack, that would be a sight to see! :D
This marine's frock is green my friend, green!

The multi focus pics are an experiment with my new Lytro camera. Neat little thing that use a 'light field' to capture images, rather than one light receptor as with traditional digital cameras. Concretely this means that instead of capturing light on a single point, you capture light on a battery of 128 nano cameras. the excess of visual information allows for dynamic changes in focus and angle àfter the photo has been captured. neat stuff, although this 1st gen camera need very decent lighting in order to make nice shots. No doubt it's larger 2nd gen brother makes better photos but it's also a lot more expensive. I bought my 1st gen camera off of amazon for 137EUR.
https://store.lytro.com/collections/the-first-generation-lytro-camera/products/first-generation-lytro-camera-16gb


Also, cannot be unseen; the back of the backpack looks like Batman playing a pan flute.

[Mud Duck]

"Holy woodwinds, Batman!"
"Yes Robin. By blowing the proper combination and series of notes, we can not only save our Battle Bothers grievous wounds, but may also find the cure for the Red Curse!"

[Meph]

^LMAO :D

Here's the wip so far, the secondary colours are not finished yet. Not all of them are on either but at least it gives a good impression of the final look.

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7288.JPG

[Son_of_Caliban]

Meph I've just sifted through all 57 pages in a single sitting!!!! Stunning mate simply stunning!!! looking forward to seeing more of your work.

[Meph]

Wow, and that's quite the compliment to have your first post as well. Cheers! :D

Also, with the # posts per page set to maximum (in your profile settings), it's only 15 pages. ^_^

[Brakkart]

Ohh that white cross on the red helmet works really well. Might borrow that for the apothecary I'm gonna have to do at some point once I get around to my command squad for the 3rd company.

Also need to buy some washers as been using 2 magnets instead of one and a washer too.

[Thaldin]

"Holy woodwinds, Batman!"
"Yes Robin. By blowing the proper combination and series of notes, we can not only save our Battle Bothers grievous wounds, but may also find the cure for the Red Curse!"

Totally read that in Adam West's voice.

[Meph]

And here it he is, assembled, oiled, and based. Not too shabby, eh? :)

http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7293.JPG
http://postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7301.JPG

I did have a slight mishap. The coat of matte varnish I put on the coat did leave some sort of a texture, but not frosting. So I had to give that another coat of gloss to try to get rid of said texture and used a brush-on matte varnish from Vallejo to make the cloth matter than the armour, which received a satin coat, just like the rest of the marines.

[Son_of_Caliban]

Very dark and ominous!! Was magnetising the jump pack easy? Im trying to magnetise all of my assault marines to save on costs/space

[Blackadder]

Not too shabby at all; your painting ability is something to aspire to. Someday when I finish all my scratch projects my first order of business is to try to become a reasonable competent painter.

[Meph]

Very dark and ominous!! Was magnetising the jump pack easy? Im trying to magnetise all of my assault marines to save on costs/space

Yeah, pretty easy actually. The magnets I have neatly fit into the sockets on the jump- and back pack, only a little bit of adjustment needed. On the marine you'll have to slice away the knob and drill a hole (pilot hole, bigger drill, final drill) to glue in the magnet. I then covered that magnet with some greenstuff. This helps to protect the magnet from each contact with the back pack. Those tiny magnets do have some force and if it's directly magnet-on-magnet you will chip paint and even risk pulling out a magnet if the superglue gets cracked loose from each violent joining.

Of course, as was pointed out to me, it's more economical to get tiny bolts or washes for the backpack so you have only magnet-metal object instead of magnet-magnet.


Not too shabby at all; your painting ability is something to aspire to. Someday when I finish all my scratch projects my first order of business is to try to become a reasonable competent painter.

Don't hesitate to poke my brain, your models deserve some painting love after all that building-love. And you know, my techniques are mainly just drybrushing and washes.

[Son_of_Caliban]

I normally use 3mm diameter x 2mm for magnetising things like terminator heavy weapon arms, I never greenstuff over them so thanks for than idea.

[Blackadder]

I've never attempted magnetizing anything as small as a backpack with the following method but this works rather well for me.

I encapsulate the magnet in a close fitting styrene tube (Evergreen Styrene) sanding the tube until the file is flush with the surface of the magnet face. I then glue the thinnest styrene sheeting available .010" (0,25 MM) to both ends of the tube and mark the polarity. You now have a magnet fully compatible with styrene glue and almost assuredly not to be broken loose. I've done this procedure with magnets as small a 1,0 by 3,0 MM with satisfactory results.

[Phoenix Bondi]

WOW! How inspiring!!!

[Peter Zuidgeest]

Cool as always Meph! Really like your angels and its a pretty big army already!

Keep up the good work! :)

[Meph]

Oh, crickey. Seems like I had a bit of a stumble and fell of the Earth there for a while... The project's not dead, I don't think it'll ever be, but I got sidetracked a bit... An arm injury preventing me from hobby-time, then holidays, then a rediscovery of Space Engineers, culprits and excuses enough... thanks for the replies and comments, people, it is a great motivation for sure.

This week is a bit hectic, but hopefully I'll be able to pick up a brush this weekend again. I have to, I want to, so much good stuff lying around still to paint, and so much good stuff on the horizon as well.

Anywhoo, I hope everyone had a good time around the holidays, that the food was good and plentiful, that the bottles were bottomless and the hangovers infinitesimal. My best wishes to all!

[Meph]

Slowly, every so slowly, something started stirring in the deep...

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_20161026_183439.jpg

[Psychosplodge]

More Bangles?

[Meph]

Bangles galore! Although it will be more than a few days until I'm up and running though, the other side of that room is a mountain of storage boxes. :)
Long story short; moved into a new apartment a few weeks ago and 98% of the household stuff is unpacked, the work has been done, but apparently I amassed a ginormous amount of books over the past decade, and they'll be sitting in a wall of boxes until I can buy and set up a wall's worth of book cabinets behind the painting desk.
And in a parallel line of evolution that most modelers will recognize, I've also collected quite the amount of boxed miniatures that need assembly and painting...

So that room is currently like one of of the square grid sliding puzzles with only one empty space. It's going to take quite a bit of pondering and cursing to get that room sorted out, as I still need to squeeze in some low drawer cabinets as well, lol.

[Psychosplodge]

Brilliant. There's always the question of "can I get one more set of shelves in here?" :D

[Meph]

Aye!
Or maybe a cupboard under there? And if I move this box up there, and that one there, I gain 10cm² of open floor space. But first I need something that happens to be in that bottom box...



...and so he was never seen again.

[Psychosplodge]

That space above the door frame makes good storage...

[Meph]

Hehehe, the door, I forgot about that one. :D

In the mean time, some stuff has been done. The setup of the paint area has been completed; assembly/work area on the extreme left, airbrush equipment in the left corner, main work area in the middle and all the equipment in the cupboard on the right. The right desk light is just an old, but good and bright desk lamp, and the lamp on the left is a Taotronics LED desk lamp I bought off of Ebay and is a really nifty piece. Can be switched between daylight and warm white, and the brightness can be controlled, all by slick touch screen-like controls. :D

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_20161106_162918.jpg


And the first bit of work done with it. Touched up the base coat for the tac. squad and gave them a dark red wash. And I think I'll also slowly start assembling the Deimos vindicator and -command rhino, just to change the pace a bit.
And I've also done some work on what's now become a very, very belated birthday gift for a friend. So that'll get priority to get that finished so I can dive into the red again. :D

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_20161109_160409.jpg

[Psychosplodge]

That's a well organised looking workspace. Not that I'm jealous :p

[Meph]

Took me almost a decade to get one though. :)

And actually not that expensive.
Black desk: 15 EUR at a second hand store,
Fancy daylight LED desk light: 70 EUR off of Amazon.de (for continental Europeans it's a good place for anythign electronic)
Airbrush booth: 60 EUR
Airbrush odds 'n ends (holder, cleaning jar): 30 EUR
And the second little table and cupboards I scrounged from my parents' place but could easily be found at 2nd hand stores or sites if you keep your eyes open. :)


And 'e's almost done!
Some odds 'n ends here and there:
-little white dot on the eyes. i think I'll leave'm black and give 'm a drop of gloss
-Little copper/gold detailing; ear ring, brass studs in the belts
-fur around the horns' edges
-Tip of the horns, currently they're actually completely black, intended to receive the just the tiniest highlights and a few coats of gloss. But I actually like the brown sheen they have in the photo. I think I'll add then IRL.
-some touching up on his shoulder fur.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7502.JPG

And then it's on to more rrrrred!


On another note, to shamelessly toot my own horn, I've got 5 photo's up on #PaintingForgeworld! Yay!

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Gallery?_requestid=1013672


Almost at the bottom, spot the red. Half an assault squad, two pics from the Contemptor, and two of the Spartan. Chuffed to bits, oi am! W00t!
The coolest part is that found out that those same photos are also used on the shop pages of Forgeworld. Under the description of a unit, you have a horizontal photo strip with those same photo's.
That means everybody browsing through the store can see them.

[Psychosplodge]

They must change really quickly or be geography specific or something as I can't see any of those things painted as Bangles :confused:

[Meph]

Well, on the main paintingforgeworld page you'll have to load & scroll almost to the bottom, and on the specific units you'll have to scroll left or right using the arrows on the photo strip.
Example: Spartan: https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Spartan-Assault-Tank

Did you have your coffee this morning?



[EDIT] Shameful typos

[Psychosplodge]

*Shudder*
Tea.
See this is why we're leaving :p

:D HA, yes the glorious Spartan in all its ....erm...glory.

And that should make the assault marines easier to find...

- - - Updated - - -

You're right though, htf did I miss those?

[Meph]

And I just noticed that the selected photos of my large scale Space Marine are up on the site as well. They're even the only ones on the miniature's shop page. Muhahaha! :D

Alrighty, progress! The Deimos variants very pretty smooth to assemble actually with little or no warping at all. I just needed to bend the back of the Vindicator hull section a tiny bit, but there's nothing that some hot water couldn't handle.

I decided to show the progress as is, with my shoddy greenstuff work on full display. Mind you, this is right after applying it so this needs to be cleaned up when cured. And any parts that don't come out exactly right, I can always disfigure with the Dremel. Battle damage to the rescue! :)

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7534.JPG


And soon I'll have some photos of the finished Taurus buste. The varnishes ave been applied. The main part of the model is matte, the leather I gave a thin satin coat, and his horns and eyes have gloss applied to them. Right now the base is drying from its first gloss coat after a black undercoat, the glass dome is wiped clean, and I gave that Taurus' rod a dam good polishing.

[Meph]

And here's to more bull! :D

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7553.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7565.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7568.JPG

[Blackadder]

Crikey, that work site is too neat. :D

[Meph]

Well, it isn't anymore! Dr. Chaos is creeping in slowly but surely :D

[Psychosplodge]

That large scale marine is bloody impressive. Is the right shoulder pad off the brass etch sprue?

[Haineko]

Could you elaborate on your airbrush workstation setup?
Like how you deal with the cloud of paint particles that inevitably mske it all around the room and stick to wherever it shouldn't :|

[Meph]

Ah, that's where that thing in the corner comes in. That baby just sucks everything right through a filter.
The hose on the back extends easily and the flat nozzle I squeezes nicely on the side between the the windows recess and the window itself when it's tilted open (it can open completely but also can just be tilted inwards a bit along the bottom edge). The thing is equipped with a good fan and filter (the blue square in the back of it). All paint is kept by the filter. The way I hook/squeeze the nozzle it's actually pointing at the little bit of wall right next to the window, so not even pointing directly out and nothing comes through the filter.
Oh, and it also has LED lighting on three sides to light the model nicely.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-Airbrush-Extension-Revolving-Turntable/dp/B00B2TESUQ/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1480373853&sr=8-4&keywords=airbrush+booth

Personally I have put some old newspaper on the inside walls of the booth, just to spare them a bit longer. :)


And to clean it it's also a breeze. I just clean out the paint from the cup as much as possible, put cleaner in the cup and spreak the airbrush into here.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/JOYOOO-Airbrush-Cleaning-Stainless-Precision/dp/B01M3SF4ID/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1480374153&sr=8-2&keywords=airbrush+cleaning+jar

The hole neatly closes fits around the airbrush, the spray sprays directly against a little wall on the inside of the lid, and the jar has venting holes with a tight filter in them. All the paint residue and cleaning product stays nicely in the jar, even at full blast.

It was a small investment, especially if you look at the long use you'll get out of these items, and I'm happy do to have done it. It's so damn easy just to sit down and directly go to work without any complex setup or cleanup.

[Meph]

Assembly of the Deimos' almost complete. Most of the fiddly bits I'll leave off during painting I think, just to make my life easier. The bolters, front rakes, the little exhaust mushrooms on the Vindi, the shield of the vindicator gun, etc, are currently not glued on yet.
So are the tracks. But when took the sprues in my hand to cut 'm loose and glue them on, I stayed my hand. I suddenly remembered that back when I was assembling the Spartan's metal replacement tracks, I found out that T-55 metal tracks in 1/35 should fit Rhino's perfectly. So I guess I'll put the assembly on hold and order some Friulmodel tracks from their webshop.

So the wise thing would be to continue on the tactical squad. Or do I listen to the siren's song of Miss Sidetrack and start assembling a FW techmarine? All those vehicles and dreads sure need a cogboy, don't ya think?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7577.JPG

[Psychosplodge]

It would be borderline techeresy to neglect the machine spiritual needs of all these vehicles.

[Meph]

Techersy averted!


Prepped and ready to go!
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7586.JPG

[Meph]

The reddening has begun!

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7592.JPG

[bloodangel 83]

The Tech Priest is beginning to look good bud. A red on red armour color is great for BA as the armour is red for the priest as well. The rest of your painted models look good and I am watching this tread still with interest.

[Meph]

Thanks, mate!


The reddening continues...

-Base coat (50/50 dark red and medium red) (Man, those new GW colours names just do not stick in my mind. If someone is interested in them, I'll gladly write 'm down correctly though)
-Dark red wash
-Medium red drybrush
-light red drybrush
-light red + flat orange drybrush
-flat orange drybrush
-flat orange +Ice Yellow (Vallejo colour) drybrush
-Ice Yellow drybrush

Now the model is drying so I can apply another dark red wash and a red glaze, after which the highlights will need some touching up again.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7598.JPG

And I found THE perfect re-use for a leftover piece of LED strip :D it's just perfect lighting wrapped around the light tent like that. :D


.

[Meph]

The reddening and blackening complete!
In the end I gave the model a red glaze, a very slight touch-up with ice yellow on certain edges.
And then did ànother red glaze and ice yellow touch-up to get the tone of the red just right and still have some light highlights.

[EDIT] Oh, and the red got a coat of Klear before doing the black. Best to protect those subtle drybrushed gradients. :)

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7604.JPG

[Psychosplodge]

Are those being taken using the black background shown in your photo booth setup?

[Meph]

Ah, no, I see the confusion. Those photos were taken using a white background. The black one was just for a test with the LED lights.
Once I saw that photo on my PC I realized that that particular photo didn't really come out well because I hadn't adapted the settings of the camera when switching between the white & black. So I didn't post the pic with the black background.

I think for the WIP shots I'll stick to white and for the finished shots I'll do both.

[Psychosplodge]

Yeah I saw the pic of your set up and then the pics of the wip and it just bothered me so I had to ask :D

[Meph]

Happy to help with the reality dysfuntcion. :D

[Psychosplodge]

XD

[Meph]

Today I've started work on the secondary colours. The bronze/gold base colour has been applied and their wash&rub of Smokey Ink (Vallejo), and the piping has had their base coat and light drybrush. The rest of the metalics and detail come after the gold has been done, as the golden drybrush highlights can affect some adjacent areas.

I've also had a nice little ****up with the axe. The head just snapped clean off, and damn, that haft is thinner than the tiniest drill bit I have so I had no choice but to brace it externally. And since my greenstuff-fu is abysmal i just added three little balls less than a mm in diameter. I'll just paint those up in copper, and the copper wire in steel. :) once that's fully cured I can continue.


http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7615.JPG

Oh, and look what I scrounged up from a box, The Crow! :D I promptly cut off it's base tab and intend to mount it on a nice little lathe'd round wooden base I also dug up.



And finally the clip-on Macro x20 lens I bought for my phone. It was a nice deal from Black Eye (the brand) and came in a double box together with a wide angle lens. I must say I was quite amazed when I first tried it out. For a little clip on thingie, those lenzes work perfect. Behold! All my painting errors in all glorious, shameless detail that should never be seen! They weren't kidding when they printed 'Macro' on the side of that lens...


http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7617.JPG

And a high res gallery for the macro shots: http://imgur.com/a/cnR5u



Olé! *clap*clap*

[Meph]

Updates, yet again. :)
Secondary colours almost complete. Some stuff needs a little bit of tweaking to clean up or smooth out.
I'm not too sure about the axe's smile. I wanted to do the pale yellowish metal I used for most my power weapons throughout the army, but I wanted to add some little lightning streaks and heat discolouration. The idea was that the powerfield slowly left its marks on the blade over the years. Maybe I need to give it a light metalic glaze to soften the effect, dunno... Perhaps the photos make the effect a little bit harsher than it is IRL.

Anyway, decals are on, so once the little cleanups are done, it's time to seal the model and apply the weathering!

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7622.JPG

Onwards and upwards!

[Meph]

First bit of sponge/foam weathering done and the model's been assembled so I can move on to oil paints. I'll probably clean up some small area's here and there beforehand. Funny how they only pop up once you've taken photos... I've noticed a small spot on his left shoulder, the barrel of his pistol needs a little more definition, and the little wing on his chest has become a bit too unclear thanks to a runaway foam stab.
Oh, and of course he's a way too shiny at the moment for really decent photos as he already received the Klear coat in preparation of the oil wash.

Whaddayathink?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7639.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7661.JPG

[Meph]

So here 'e is, after an oil wash and a night's wait. Normally I tend to go in for cleanups when the wash is touch-dry but not cured yet, say half an hour, an hour after applying the wash. Sometimes the wash pools a bit too much here and there, or a flat surface has a bit too much on it. But yesterday was a rather busy day so I kinda forgot to do that. After a night's drying, you can still go in and correct stuff, using a cotton stick or brush damp with odourless turpentine, but you'll have to rub a bit harder and making very smooth feathered transitions is a little bit harder. Luckily this model needed no cleanup as far as I can see. I'll scrutinize it a bit more before sealing it in with another coat of clear, but it seems good to go.
Next up, I think I'll redefine some small details with a fine black outline and then apply some oil and grease stains here and there.


http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7666.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7675.JPG

[Psychosplodge]

Very nice, looks very functional too busy keeping everything else working to keep his own armour shiny.

[Brakkart]

Loving the Techmarine, he really looks like he's been through the thick of it and taken a battering in the process. Very "lived in" look to his armour.

[Meph]

Thanks guys! That was exactly the look I was going for on his armour and apron (s******). I imagined him to focus on his battle brother during the battle/campaign, only taking care of his own armour when all the rest is spic & span.

Meanwhile, in Marine Land.

The techie's done. Currently his first phase of basing is drying, but here he is just after the details have been finished. Not too happy with the varnish coat though. I'm using a spray can from Army Painter, satin varnish, and it seems just a tad too glossy compared to the other cans I've used for them. I gave him a satin coat, was unhappy with the shininess (would I get a punch in the mouth for saying albedo?), gave him a matte coat to tray and soften it up. Was not please with the 100% dull look that matte varnish gives, so gave him another satin coat. He should be able to withstand a small tactical nuclear blast now.

I didn't do the normal three-colour highlight I normally do on the eyes as they're so frickin' tiny, and recessed so deeply that applying these green dots almost gave me a heart attack. They're literally two minuscule droplets suspended between three brush hairs, applied with the steady hand of a surgeon playing 'Operation' on a subatomic scale. Took years of my life and I won't even try to add a highlight or a white dot.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7685.JPG


And yesterday went a bit on a rampage through the bits box and cobbled together this guy. I must say I'm quite happy with the way he came out. Equipped with a jump pack, he'll be coming to your rescue when your vehicle breaks down in the middle of a firefight. And with the remote bolt pistol, he's got both hands free to use his Astartes Mutlitool. Whatever can't be fixed with a hammer (seriously, precious little), can be fixed with a spanner, and vice versa.

The metal and dark plastic piping is from Zinge Industries and I must say I'm amazed by their quality for the price. I'd be damned if I'd coil that much tiny copper wire by hand myself, and their flexible resin (the dark tubes) come in all shapes and sizes and is easily bendable, immediately holding its shape and feels like it has the right smoothness and feel to hold paint without any trouble. Good stuff for someone of my mediocre manufacturing skills. And they also have resin cable endings/plugs which will go on the end of those cables once the little greenstuff blob holding them together has cured. For those of you with some conversions in the future, check out their website, they've got tons of goodies for good prices.


http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7677.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7681.JPG

Oh, don't mind the right arm that seems a bit droopy, the white poster putty I'm using for the temp posing isn't all that solid.

[Meph]

Little side project with a little order from Shapeways has been done.



"This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I'm stepping through the door, and I see something floating in a most peculiar waaa-a-a-ay."

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_20161225_140255.jpg


Merry Christmas everyone!

[Meph]

Alrighty, picture time

The basing on the techie is practically done. Maybe a wee bit more power here and there, but I don't know.
Also tried both the black and the white background I have for my little lighting tent.
Personally I'm a much bigger fan of the black one as it seems to handle the colour contrast better. Also, on the black background I shoot the photos at 1/250 shutter speed. On the white background, I'm forced to go to 1/15 or 1/20, because the white background makes the model almost appear black on faster shutter settings.

Then again, the white does seem more cleaner for WIP shots, but for finished models I think I'll stick to black.
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7693.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7703.JPG

Track time! Since Friulmodel is no longer responding to what I thought to be a very simple question, (To me it seems self-evident to have specs for manufactured model parts, but apparently asking the width of a track in millimeters seems like a strange concept to them.) I went and bought some 'Easy Metal Links' 1/35 PanzerII tracks from Dersockelshop.de. Some research on the web gave me enough information to guesstimate their 1/35 width in mm. They are about a mm thinner than the plastic Rhino tracks but that also gives them 1mm space in the track housing. the plastic GW tracks are actually touching the sides.

The metal tracks look less beefy than the plastic ones, at first I even thought they looked too flimsy, but they're growing on me. What do you guys think?
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7716.JPG

[Brakkart]

I'm liking those tracks though I'll admit after putting together a dozen+ Rhino chassis now the tracks that come with them have grown on me, hated them the first time I built one. Big thanks for the mention of Zinge Industries, after looking at their site I can see me getting a load of bits from them for my industrial wastes shanty town scenery project.

[Psychosplodge]

IDK whether I like them or not. I don't dislike them. But I'm not sure I like them enough to bother swapping the standard ones.

[Blackadder]

They look too delicate for tank treads.

[bloodangel 83]

I like the look of the individual tracks as they look like tracks are supposed to look, not blocky like GW to where they don't flow with the road wheels

[Meph]

Sorry for the lack of updates and responses, guys. Work got the better of me.

Hiatus finished! Man, it felt good to get out the brushes again, and to spray paint to the tunes of a compressor, airbrush booth, and Shylmagoghnar. :D

Just some rough work done to flex the muscles again and get the projects going again.
I took some quick pics of the work done.

The Rhinos:
Ditched the track swap. The guide teeth are just too off-center to use on a Rhino chassis without reconstructing the running wheels. In a fit of McGuyverness I even bought some Panzer MKII 1/35 running wheels but they are just too large, and I didn't want to order any more. And frankly, the Rhino tracks are not as bad as the standard Spartan ones I replaced on, well, the Spartan.

So, Glued on the standard ones and basecoated the lot. Next up is to come up with a good masking scheme to tie them in the rest of the vehicles. Probably some racing stripes for the Rhino, maybe even perpendicular ones. And for the Vindicator, I'm probably going for a black chevron on the top.

The tactical squad: Got two brushed highlights, a wash, and a glaze

The techmarine, first drybrushed highlights and a wash and a glaze as well.

Onwards!



http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_20170304_160858.jpg

[Blackadder]

Lordy; Meph is back. Sorry the reads didn't work out; I hope it wasn't something I said. ;-)

The one large tread http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7716.JPG looks intriguing, what is the source for that and do you think it would fit a Baneblade tank?

[Meph]

They're 1/35 T-55 tracks from Friulmodel.

http://www.friulmodel.hu/en/metal-tracks-m5/metal-tracks-1-35-p5.6/

I've noticed they're quite easy to find in hobby shops in Europe, dunno across the pond. Hmmm, I'm not sure if they're just wide enough for a Baneblade. Oh, I've got an unassembled superheavy lying around somewhere. I can take a look tomorrow and measure them up.

Some better pics of the Techmarine. I have him another highlight and a few red glazes.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7720.JPG

[Meph]

ok, so not thàt much progress... :)

Another wash, another glaze, another light highlight, and sealed it in with some Klear. Damn, that bottle is almost empty, I'l guessing 15cl left. Say, does anyone know the exàct replacement one can find in Western Europe? I bought some Klir recently, a French brand that was supposed to be the replacement that can be used as varnish/thinner, but it's milky as hell so I'm not even going to try using that... I've been googling like crazy for it and can only find contradicting information. So any first-hand advice would be great...

Oh, and the details have been blacked out, and I did some experimenting with the white and background again. :)

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7728.JPG

Oh, and I couldn't dig up that superheavy yet, I'm guessing it's way down on the bottom in a box full of boxes...
But I can confirm that those T-55 tracks are 18mm wide. :D

[Meph]

The progress of the past two weekends:
Probably just a couple of hours painting in details and secondary colours. The model now needs a coat of Klear so I can apply a decal or two, and once those are on it's onto weathering.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7737.JPG

[Psychosplodge]

We really need a like button to acknowledge our continued interest without just repeating the same words about liking it.

[Meph]

Cheers! :D Ah well, any kind of reply is always welcome. :D

[Blackadder]

Well you've got one here and excellent work. These dudes would look ideal as a crew for my titans, what model kit is this?

[Meph]

Thanks!

Well, he's a bit of a mish-mash:

The shoulder pad is from this one: https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Techmarine-in%20Mk-III-Armour
His left arm is from another FW marine that I can't seem to dig up again.
The head is also from FW https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Techmarine-in-Mk-IV-Armour (leftover from the previous Techie)
The torso is from https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Legion-MKIII-Despoiler-Squad
His halo is from a FW AdMech unit, can't remember which one, and the skull is from some 3rd party bag o' skulls.
His hammer is from a 3rd party bitz maker, and his spanner is from the Finecast techmarine

[Meph]

Just to let you guys know. I crawled on the paint wagon again, walking next to it was itching too hard, especially with 8th edition coming out

I'll try to take some more pics of the progress of last weekend, but as a verbal appetizer:
-Tac. Squad finally has all details blacked out and is ready for detailing
-Tech Marine is almost finished!
-Vehicles have no progress at all.µ
-Primaris Sergeant and Primaris Lieutenant converted and undercoated.
-Bought way too much Forgeworld stuff the past few months, it all needs some more love and time.

Here are some quick pics. I just noticed I actually need to do some last detailing on the base, and paint in his eye lenses.

Oh, and I decided to do a comparison between a black and white background again.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7751.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7761.JPG

[Blackadder]

A three month sabbatical; where've you been?

[Meph]

Basically, zombified after work each day and weekends filled up fast. Still 27 years to pension, so some free time re-planning was needed in case I ever wanted to have some painting done. :D

[Meph]

Progress of a long weekend!

The Primaris Lt. is red now!
And the tac squad is drying from their oil paint wash, so, practically finished.
I'll take some pictures tonight.

And this one's done!! I'll take some pictures on a black background as well I think.


http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7770.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7789.JPG


And some more pics in here
http://imgur.com/a/X0dtd

[Meph]

W.I.P. shots! All a bit shiny because of the gloss coat (for the oil paint wash they had). All that needs to be done is is matte them down with some satin varnish, and base them.

Oh, and I just noticed that the guy holding a bolter clip still has a clip in his gun. What should I do with that? Remove it or leave it?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7797.JPG

[Meph]

Important decisions need to be made, the Lieutenant!

New School stripe ? (http://pro.bols.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Primaris-Painting_3-e1499897415646.jpg)

or

Old School stripe ? (http://pro.bols.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/RT_RankBadges-1-.jpg)


Personally I'm leaning towards a New Skool stripe, but then with black and gold (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHuebHTD-lY")

What are your thoughts?

[BigGrim]

Black and Gold new school sounds like a winner to me!

[Meph]

Noo Skool it is! But the dog ate my homework, so no photos, but the miniature's OK though.

So I did some stuff over the weekend. Mainly varnishing the tac squad. And oh boy, they're bomb-proof now. First the satin varnish, too glossy (probably due to the gloss coat they still had), then a matte varnish to tone it down a bit. Slight panic due to mild whitening of the models. Renewed relief after another satin varnish coat, removing the whiteness and giving an acceptable albedo. Forgot to take pictures though so I think I'll go ahead and base them before taking some final shots.

And started on the secondary colours of the Lt. For now I made the helmet stripe golden, with a black outline, but I'm wondering if I should invert that or not. I'll take a few photos this evening.

[Meph]

Well, tadaa! Secondary colours are being painted in. Still don't know if I should have gone for the black inner stripe with gold outlines on his helmet or not. Maybe I'll try that for the second lieutenant. :)
And some parts have received a gloss coat for some decals.
The tactical marines received their slightly too glossy satin coat, but I think I'll leave it at that. it tends to dull down over time anyway. And as you can see the bases are halfway done. They just need some weathering powder, and some drybrushed highlights on the stones.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7817.JPG

[StraightSilver]

He's looking ace, how easy was it to remove the original shoulder pads and replace with those?

And the Lieutenant stripes on the helmets gave me an absolute nightmare, just couldn't get them straight!! :)

[Meph]

Cheers! Well, the shoulder pads were easier than expected actually. The easiest way I found is to use a little saw blade for your xacto knife, and saw out the inner part of the shoulder pad with two perpendicular cuts. That way you can use your sprue clippers and modeling knife to carefully remove the remains of the rim. With some care you can preserve the little extra 'lip' that those Primaris shoulder pads have. I used a little blob of greenstuff to fill the cavity and used normal plastic cement to glue the pad and arm on their contact points. The new shoulder pads fit almost perfectly on the remaining lip. Only one needed the tiniest amount of green stuff, and with some light filing the seams became invisible.

Oh, and I recently got the Primaris captain and librarian. Their shoulder pads are even 100% compatible with the old ones, and come separate as usual. So most likely all non-quick-build Primaris marine kits will be like this.

[Psychosplodge]

Love the throw back to the old school BA rank colours, very nicely done Meph.

[Blackadder]

Gawd there are so many great colours for Space Marines. The Blood angels look terrific. Do Emperro Titans Transport Space Marines I wonder? ;)

[Meph]

Cheers, guys!

Oh, it wouldn't take much convincing from the Mechanicus for the Marines to ride the titan's leg. W00f! :)

Picture time!

Ze vehicles. Masked and primed. For the command Rhino I decided to take a risk and do some quick & dirty masking. I made sure the lines went straight, but unlike previous maskings I did, I did not take the time to stick and cut dozens of tiny pieces to have every nook & cranny just right. it's a deliberate attempt to save time. I'm curious to see how it comes out. I'm expecting some manual cleanup for sure, but hopefully less time-consuming than immaculate taping beforehand. We'll see. Weathering can cover a lot of boo-boos.

For the vindi, I first wanted to add some thin striping patterns, that evolved into a chevron, and once that was in place I thought; hmm why not cover the whole back bit and do a two-tone paint job?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7823.JPG

The Lt. has had his secondary colours painted on, was assembled, and is ready for weathering and oil paint wash. The stripe looks good enough for the naked eye, but on photo it becomes clear it was painted by a naked monkey. Next time it will be done with masking take for sure, or at least the middle stripe, so that's nice and tight.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7836.JPG


The second tactical squad for the army. Equipped with grav weapons and a missile launcher. The still somewhat glossy coat is annoying the frak out of me. In person it's hardly noticeable, but on photo, oh boy... Well, you see the results. Whilst not catastrophic, it does show some gloss highlights which aren't there on the paint job, and these photos were even shot with 1/200 shutter speed. I'm sore tempted to attempt another pass with a satin varnish, but I'm not sure that will fix the issue, and might even mess up that bases a bit. We'll see where the whim takes me.

Combat Squad one, with the sarge.
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7869.JPG

Combat Squad two, with the veteran leading his brothers.
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7868.JPG

[Meph]

Alrighty the progress of the past weekend. I gave the Deimoses their red base coat, applied the highlights and some washes & glazes and removed the masking tape.
I must say, for my lazier, quicker masking round I must say I'm quite pleased with the results. The Vindicator needs almost no fixing or cleanup, just the apex of the chevron a bit, but not the lines themselves.

The Rhino will need some more work. The area between the cupolas will need a bit of work, but the rest of the parts need just a little touch-up here and there.

Onwards!


http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7907.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7910.JPG


And a high-res gallery to see every flaw in glorious zoom-o-vision.
http://imgur.com/a/L0ACo


Oh, and I bought this on a whim: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01CL4D6MQ/ref=pe_3187911_185740111_TE_item
I still need to try out the frame & background, but I bought it mostly because it was one of the cheapest LED panel I could find, two of them, with table clamps.
And I must say, having some more lumen oomph sure does wonders for the photos. Usually I have to adjust the photos a bit in Photoshop to better match reality, but with these led arrays... well, the photos you see here are straight from the camera.

[Meph]

Meanwhile, 'the bullet has passed through the church', as a good Flemish expression goes. I decided to keep the Xiphon vanilla for now. Mainly because I didn't want to be delayed several weeks with laborious plasticard-fu.
Still I spent +-3 hours masking those wings. But it's done. I present to you; Red Two. :)
Apparently there's a whole mathematic to that red squadron wing graphic. It's six red lines wide, with a line's width in between them, and the big red part is as wide as the edge of the third line to the edge of the 6th line.

Luckily 3mm masking tape offered a nice spread on the wing, almost lining up with the wing plating.

Then there's a shot of my work desk. Paint and tools creeping up like a North Sea tide.

And finally mr. Lt. is having his base done.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7914.JPG

[Meph]

I almost forgot to do the cockpit before moving on to the exterior. As with the Stormraven, I opted for a soviet-esque turquoise. A quick drybrush, some colour spots for lighst and buttons, and all it needs now is a black oil paint wash and it'll be good to go. In any case, most of the detail will be lost in the gloom anyways. I tinted the canopy but it's not 100% slick & smooth. I think I'll need to give that a gloss coat for clear it it up.
And the pilot needs a quick paint job as well.

And clumsy me slightly bent a needle of one of my airbrushes :( That, with slightly thickish paint resulted in some splatter. But luckily it is inconsequential for the current stuff.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7930.JPG

[Blackadder]

Doing a bit of painting this week myself. I am following your technique with great interest.

Now, How do you bend a airbrush needle? and can you not buy a replacement?

BTW what red are you using on your Blood Angels?

[Meph]

Well, I was only half looking when putting the airbrush in its holder. Wasn't completely bent, but a bit, yeah. I managed to straighten it by hand and it's still useable for basecoating and washed. I have a replacement lying around but I'll keep that for when I need to do some über-fine stuff.

My red base coat is a 50/50 mix of Mechrite Red and Blood Red. I think Mechrite red got renamed to Scab red now, and Blood red to Mephiston Red. Anyway, so it's a 50/50 mix of terracotta red and a red red. :D thinned for airbrush using thinner and demineralized water.

[StraightSilver]

Looking very nice, love the colour for that cockpit.

Can I ask how you tinted the canopy? It looks very subtle comaperd to other tinted canopies I've seen and is a really nice effect.

[Meph]

Thanks! :D

Well to tint it, immersed it into a mix of Tamiya Clear (yellow) mixed to a +/- 1:3 Tamiya Clear/airbrush thinner. The vallejo airbrush thinner is fully transparent, as opposed to some milky ones. I also added a little bit of demineralized water, but that wasn't needed I think.
And as a recipient I used a tiny little jam jar. That way I can keep my mix and have it deep enough to immerse the cockpit in.
After immersing I gently dabbed off the excess off by touching the cockpit edge to the edge of a piece of old newspaper. That sucks off the excess quite nicely without having to touch the flat panes of the cockpit.
I let it dry completely and then did a second dipping.

[Meph]

Progress! The cockpit's almost ready for assembly. The pilot just needs his oil paint wash and he's good to go.
That cockpit was a nightmare to paint though. That plastic is just so slippery, and those edges so tiny, it was very hard to keep a straight line.
And I was a bit disappointed about that break line pattern. I assumed it was a small indentation in the cockpit so it could easily take a runny line and stay perfectly straight. But nooooo, they had to make that an infinitesimal little ridge on the inside of the cockpit. I tried to keep a stable hand with non-runny paint, but that's the best I could do...

Anyway, got some airbrush Vallejo Premium Satin and Matte varnish and it seems that that is the way to go for my minis. I airbrushed him matte and then gave the metallic bits a satin coat by brush. And I'm liking the effect, it doesn't flatten the colours as much as spray can varnish. I'm thinking I'll experiment with a 1:2 mix of satin:matte. That should give a good coat that's not 100% flat.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7937.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7940.JPG

Oh, and the cockpit's just a bit dusty, that stippling is not in the tint coat.

[Meph]

The time has come. He received 6 consecutively lighter highlights, with two dark washes and two light glazes along the way.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7963.JPG

And then; Mask off

https://media.giphy.com/media/EitsOpp5sfU76/giphy.gif

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7968.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7975.JPG

The glass of the cockpit needs a new masking. But just the glass, not the frame included, and then it's time for decals!

[Meph]

Update time!

Still fighting with the decals. Most of them are blending in nicely, other needs some more poking-with-a-needle. And one or two have shifted position, which is less fun...

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7981.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7985.JPG

The Deimosesess decals are also receiving their Micro Sol coats, but they're almost ready to go.
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7991.JPG


And then I've started applying glazes to the engine nozzles, using a vector thrusting nozzle of an Su-35 as a reference. While drying it seemed I was almost there. Now that the glazes are dry, it's clear that I have a long way to go...
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_7993.JPG

[Meph]

A few days on and the weathering is at 60% I'd say For the Deimoses at least.
The Xiphon has had its engines given some heat discolouration, and then I glued its rocket engine into place. I based myself off off that Su-35 reference photo but I didn't want to push the colours thàt hard either. What do you guys think?
I'm also doubting a bit whether I should give do the hull streaking/weathering with acrylics or oil paints, but I'm leaning towards oil paints as they can be adjusted and corrected easier. but it is a lot messier and time-consuming.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8002.JPG


The Vindicator is the furthest along.
Model was coated with a 5:1 mix of sating:matte Vallejo airbrush varnish.
-I gave the barrel some colour glazing with acrylics but that needs some work still.
-The hull was sponge-stippled with a mix of boltgun metal and dark grey, another layer of dark grey, a light layer of tin bitz, and some silver
-The hull damage was also highlighted using some metallics.
-Most edges and rivets were given a wash of thinned black & brown oil paint, feathered a bit when almost dry.
-Some other edges and rivets (mostly on the black part) were given a careful wash of thinned Burnt Umber oil paint with some rust-coloured weathering powders and also feathered/streaked when almost dry.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8005.JPG


The Rhino/Razorback was given the same treatment.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8011.JPG


The tracks need work, also the exhaust pipes and Vindi barrel. After that the lenzes need to be painted in, and it's on to soot and dirt.

Feedback, comments, questions, all are welcome!

[Meph]

These photos were taken an hour or two ago and since then the Deimoses have received a second layer of dirt, and the top of the Xiphon has been outlined and streaked with oil paints.

That means that the Deimoses are actually very close to the finish line. Once the weathering powder fixer is dry, I'll have to rub some metallic edges with a soft pencil or some scratched-off graphite, give them a good coat of varnish to completely seal in the powders to the models can handle being handled for gaming. And maybe I'll need to do some light touch-ups, as varnish tends to darken the weathering powders quite a bit.

Oh, and lenzes... They'll need their lenzes painted in.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8021.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8027.JPG

Once the Xiphon's oil paints are dry and to satisfaction, all it needs is some black weathering powder here and there, and then it's also almost done.
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8032.JPG

[Blackadder]

I like the grunge. Too bad Adeptus Mechanicus keep their mechs so clean.

[Meph]

Oh, I'm pretty sure you can get away with some wear & tear during lengthy campaigns. :D

- - - Updated - - -

Here are some high-res galleries of the WIPs so far.
http://imgur.com/a/L0ACo
http://imgur.com/a/RwlwZ

[Meph]

It's been a while and didn't manage to get much painting time in the past few weeks. but over the past two weekends I managed to finish up the two Deimoses, and the Xiphon is 99% done, needing just some lenses painted in.

In the end I didn't go full-out with the weathering powders on the deimoses as i wanted them to be playable without leaving powder marks every time you set it down. So they received a big coat of varnish to seal in the powders, but that turned them really a lot darker than intended. I guess I should have gone with a very, very light mix of powder to keep the medium brown mud look after the varnish. On the other hand, while it is a tad dark right now, it doesn't look too bad, looks sufficently muddy, and it doesn't rub of when you pick up the model.

On the Xiphon, I saw I'll need to go back on some decals and stab them profusely with a needs and try to rub in some gloss varnish to get rid of the film shine that is present in some lighting angles. Mainly the pilot's name on the front section, and the signs on the left hand side just behind the cockpit.

Whadayathink, guys?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8034.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8052.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8059.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8066.JPG

More photos in high-res:
https://imgur.com/a/L0ACo

https://imgur.com/a/RwlwZ



Enjoy!

[Blackadder]

Nicely done, I should you you to paint my titans.

[Meph]

Frankly, I'd be a joy to paint 'm. :D
but shipping across the pond to and fro might be a tad risky, as well as expensive. :(

Next up, Boaty McBoatface! I got a plasma cannon set for him as well, so I though it best to magnetize the lot. The top weapon, and side weapons have been fully magnetized, and I just need to magnetize the little under-slung weapons.
Once I have the main body pose in place, I can decide on the position of the main weapons so I can bend the ammo/feed belts accordingly. I magnetized the ball joins and the ammo pack and I feel it might be best to paint the ammo-belt-weapon assembly in one piece. Still there's a chance that the assembly won't be sturdy enough and I'll be forced to paint the ammo, belt, and weapons separately. Ah well, we'll see...

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8094.JPG

[Meph]

Aaaalrighty then. And with the blink of an eye, more than a month has passed. I haven't completely been sitting still, well, almost. I've been staring at minis a lot.

The Derereredeo has vexed me as on how to magnetize the arms with a decent transportability in mind, and still have a good-looking pose. The whole arm setup is rather complex, yet easy to set up, but it's the ammo feeds that further complicate matters. In the end I went with a standard pose setup as it still is a cool pose, but it won't compromise structural stability. As for now the 'armpit/shoulder' part is still separate as it will be easier to paint, but once done, I'll glue the gun assembly into the armpit, and the whole gun arm(s) will be easy to remove and swap.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8151.JPG


The tempest is stuck together. And whilst it does come equipped with a fully detailed cockpit and pilot, I decided to leave those out. I didn't feel like scratch-building a hinge mechanism for that small canopy, so I just glued it it on and called it done.
the gun and bumper will be painted separately, and I swapped out the standard wing-tip antenna with some copper detailing as I think it looks neater. The resin Forgeworld antennae were a bit to thick, and not 100% straight, and on antenna like that I though it crucial to have a clean look. Even when straightened out manually, the resin bits would never be 100% straight, and very prone to breaking off.

I also lost a lot of time coming up with a paint scheme for the tempest, but I'm not quite done with pondering... I thought to perhaps add a straight black bar length-wise, as wide as the cockpit, and smaller length-wise stripes on the wings. Or perhaps a broad, diagonal stripe across the whole of the model, much like this:
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/fighter/draken/draken_02.jpg
What do you think? Any alternative ideas?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8157.JPG


And then... I decided it was time. After a lot of thinking and brainstorming I couldn't come up with a definitive plan of approach, or even design, for the reworked Storm Talon, so I decided the best way would be to glue one together, and then attack it with a saw and a bitz box. And then the whole road ahead became clear.
Larger wings, canards, a smaller gun turret, less building-sized weapon sponsons, and an overall stretched look. I didn't feel like meticulously planning the conversion, and I wanted to use as many plastic components as possible, as they are very easy to adapt and glue. I felt that to have as much structural strength as possible, that the melted bond of plastic cement would be the way to go. So the main conversion will be done by hacking, cutting, and sanding various plastic bits, and I'll use plasticard and greenstuff to fill in any structural short-comings.

What do you think so far? Any thoughts or suggestions?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8145.JPG

[Blackadder]

I don't understand what the magnets are for as it appears 'the conduit' and 'ammo belt' restricts aiming movement?

[Meph]

Well, the ball socket in combination with the jaw articulation on the 'elbow' do allow for quite a bit of movement of the gun (some jaw, but a lot of pitch), but it would require a reshaping of the ammo belt. For the plasma cannons this would be rather easy as the cabling is relatively thin, but the ammo belt of the cannons would require some more extensive resin-bending.

The magnets are inserted in the ball socket and on the ammo box so the whole assembly can be swapped out easily.

[Meph]

Under construction!
Progress from the weekend. Took my time to undercoat the speeder and the dread. Lots of nooks & crannies, so lots of little sessions with drying time in between. Also, an airbrush booth cannot get rid of the stench of a spray can thàt easily so I preferred to spend the drying time elsewhere. :)

But the better part of hobby time was spent on the Storm Talon MKII. As foreseen, going into the build without a plan means I'll have to McGyver my way through every unforeseen issue that pops up.
I glued in some extra little bits in the back hole in order to have some extra support for the tail, but I probably should have waited with gluing the tail on until the nose section was finished.

Not that it's a dramatic issue, but I'm thinking that that nose would be a bit easier to shape without the tail attached, in terms of holding the model my hand for sanding and cutting. I also wondered if it would be best to blend the nose to the fuselage using plasticard for a cleaner look, but I know myself. Accurate measurements of such a complex shape would be subject to complex quantum physics between measuring, cutting, and fitting. So greenstuff it is! Came out better than I feared though. needs some sanding when dry but I feel it will look OK.

I also glued in some extra support struts in the tail section using bits of sprue, and I subsequently found out that the wings needed to be mounted just a tad higher in order to properly be clear of the engine nozzles. So more sprue was cut up and glued into place. This also means that I'll have to do more work than expected to the dorsal area.

But I feel the McGyver is strong with this build, so full steam ahead! (Although I doubt I'll get much done during the week...)


http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8161.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_8166.JPG

[Blackadder]

I like those clamps, so much better than my clothespins; who make them? BTW that hydraulic feed back compensation was a brilliant suggestion.

[Meph]

Well, the big clamps came with a toolbox set from a brand called 'Contra', not high quality, but the tools are good enough. The small ones I got from a DIY store, but I have no idea about the brand.
I found these on Amazin just now, they seem to be similar to the small ones:
https://www.amazon.com/20-pc-Plastic-Spring-Clamp/dp/B0009T8AKY

And this seems like a good set as well:
https://www.amazon.com/Plastic-Spring-Clamps-Set-pcs/dp/B075GXLM4K/ref=sr_1_3_sspa?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1510509062&sr=1-3-spons&keywords=plastic+spring+clamp&psc=1

And I glad I could help on the big build! :D

[Meph]

Alrighty, a month and a half onwards and not that much has been done. Personal life and work life have been rather busy and exhausting but I did squeeze in the odd hobby hour here and there.
Also bought myself a Nikob D3400 and a tripod on Black Friday at a rather ridiculous discount. It's been well over a decade since I worked with RAW (.nef actually) image formats so that needs some tweaking here and there, especially with presentation photos.
As you can see below, lots of skill to (re-)learn.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0068.jpg


And here's the main progress of the past weeks, the Storm Talon reborn. A lot of time was spent pondering and contemplating, seeing as this whole build is without plan. But bit by bit it's taking shape.

I like how the nose turned out, looking much better than I feared and the knight bit blended in nicely with the body. I also have the gun assembly figured out, as well as a separate sighting system that will be installed just below the beak/nose, with the gun system sitting below it on it's 'standard' connecting point.

I though long and hard on how to install the canards but in the end I just took a saw to those side bits so I can slide them in neatly. I'm wondering whether to blend them in nicely to the body (extend it to the hull using plasticard, or leave them somewhat separated as-is. What do you guys think?

The wings, I'm honestly not too sure about those. If I had all the time and skill in the world, I would completely reconstruct the sucker with the wings more in the middle, and a complex engine-rotating system a little more aft, but since I decided this would be a minimum-effort project, I'm going to row with the oars that I have. And actually I consider this project to be a warm-up session for the Stormhawk rebuild I've got lined up as well, so I don't mind the more wild exploratory kitbashing. With the delta wing this far aft, and the rotating engines in their default location, the whole thing does give off a kind of ornithopter vibe, which suits the Storm Talon I think.

At the very least, this rebuild has a more plausible wing surface area where air could actually flow over and under instead of that utter brick-like design of the regular storm talon (especially that silly turret and those ridiculously oversized weapon pods).
I reconstructed the wings of a Stormraven to have it's missile pods on the wing tips, and had to improvise the missiles-, and exhausts themselves, kitbashed from another kit as I didn't have the Stormraven's original missiles anymore. Tempting as it was, I decided not to go for a complicated, modular, and magnetized setup, so the build will be missiles only, no Heavy bolters or lascannons.

Thoughts?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0080.JPG

[Meph]

Hmmm, looking at the model right now makes me think I can probably move the main wings up and forward a bit, seeing as those canards will be pumping furiously all the time. I can relocate the wings until they're touching that little backwards scoop on the top. That could balance out the craft quite a lot I think.

Green stuff needs drying now. :)

Built up the back/shoulder a bit using two parts of a sprue, and blended in with some green stuff. The wing is just a tad too low now. Although the wing is not blocking the engine nozzle, I would like to have just a tad more clearance to allow for a better air flow over and under the wings. I'll use the tabs I cut off of the large Stormraven wings. Perfect thickness, and I can continue to build up the wing using plastics only so that the meld bond of the plastic cement will ensure a solid structure.

Oh, and as you can see I gave the chevron masking an attempt on the Land Speeder Tempest. Not 100% tight but not too shabby nonetheless. I think it's reasonably accurate for painting.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0087.JPG

[StraightSilver]

Looking forward to seeing more progress on the Storm Talon, looking good so far. :)

[Meph]

Well, a preview of the Storm Talon, and the Derededededeo also received his masking. :D

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0098.JPG

More progress this weekend.

[Meph]

Some progress from over the past few weeks. Din't have much hobby-time, sadly. But still, I got some stuff done. I've done some more stuff today, but didn't take any pictures yet.
But the progress to far:

-Found sweet and easy way to build up the back spine. I clipped a part from a Valkyrie, and some spure. :)
-Finally got my head wrapped around the sighting mechanism. It's the lens bit with the two hoops, with the gimbal on the bottom right. Plus greenstuff, plenty of green stuff.
-Also concocted a neat gun assembly.
-Gave the tail a rounded leading edge with some suitably shaped plasticard.
-Built up the 'shoulder' of the wing with greenstuff.

oh, and some **** got red, yo.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0109.JPG

[Meph]

And the progress of today:
I added a thruster assembly to the tail. It made sense, giving it better maneuverability, both in hover as well as level flight.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0137.JPG

[Meph]

Things are moving along nicely. Despite not having much free time to paint, I did manage to get some stuff done.

The Storm Talon is complete, which came as a small surprise actually. After so much time fiddling with bits, cutting, sanding, etc., it suddenly popped into ready-for-paint status.
I'm currently assembling the pilot to see see if I have to glue in the main cockpit console bore painting or not.
Actually, since the last set of photos I just had to add the canards and my original plan was to extend/blend the canards into the fuselage. But after much staring and contemplating I figured they would look better without the extensions so I just had to slot-, and glue them into place and close the little gaps with some greenstuff. I'm getting eager to give the model its black under coat so it will be easier to see the actual state of the kit-bashing and sculpting.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0153.JPG

And the other models have gotten most of their red coats on. I gave them my usual layering of drybrushed highlights, washes, and glazes. I just need to add the lightest highlights with Ice Yellow (VJ), and maybe another glaze. And then it's peelin' time!
I hope there's not too much bleed-in of the red onto the black as I've noticed that some bits of masking tape are not as tight as they used to be. Fingers crossed!

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0151.JPG

What say you?

[Meph]

Ok, the red's on, and the tape's come off. :D
It's better than expected as I feared much more leakage under the masking tape. Guess I didn't do such a shoddy job after all. Just some lines need to be cleaned up here and there.

Whaddaythink?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0167.JPG

[Blackadder]

Wow! Painfully exacting masking; how does it look from other angles?

[Meph]

Some more shots just to show off the masking. ^_^
Also, I did enough work on the missile pods so I could remove the masking tape. Those lines are tight! EvenifIdosaysomyself...

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0173.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0178.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0187.JPG

[Meph]

The photos I took last week didn't really turn out that well and I didn't really get round to taking new ones until now.
But that means more progress to show, yay!

The secondary colours are almost done, just a few bits & bobs here and there. I stuck to the same base scheme as the rest of the army, with just a few new colours on the cables so each has a different colour. We wouldn't want to confuse the Tech Priests now, do we?
And I still have to add the plasma glow. It won't be true OSL, just a glow effect on the coils, as I did on the other plasma weaponry in the army.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0242.JPG

And here's the Tempest. The metalics are on, and only the missile launcher exhaust plate got the tertiary green colour.
I have a conundrum about the Abe Lincoln beard though... My original idea was to have it black, with the bigger 'blocks' on the bumper in either a dark metal or the bronze/gold, but I felt it might be too distracting from the general look of the model. Leaving it in black feels like a good compromise, as doing the bumper in red might be too bland, and doing it in green, or bits of it, doesn't seem to suit it at all. I'm curious as to what you guys think of it.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0250.JPG

Once the last little colour bits are done, it's on to decals!

[Blackadder]

I still don't know how you managed to make those parallel diagonal black stripes straight on an expanding curved surface. What's your secret?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0178.JPG

Perhaps it's not difficult as I have never tried to do it but it seems the tape mask would curve with the contour and the width of the line would expand toward the center of the line????

[Meph]

Ah, you are right indeed about the curve and contour. Luckily there are some angles on there that allow for a clean curve along the lines of the tape without being distorted by the 'bulge' of the overall shape. I also used an extra parts of the 2mm tape of the thinner line as a guideline between the two black lines. That allows for a consistent distance between the two painted mines. So basically I stuck three parallel lines and removed the middle one.

[Blackadder]

Where do I get 2 MM tape? masking Tape? Anyway, a workman like job and kudos....

[Meph]

Woops, posted in the wrong thread. :)

Well, you should be able to find it at most modeling-, or hobby stores I think.
I can personally vouch for the good quality of Tamiya's, but most brands should be good I guess. The two things to look out for is a good tackiness with easy and clean release when pulled, and that the edges stay flat and crisp when painting over them.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...+tape&_sacat=0

[Meph]

Updates! Updates! Come get yer updates!

Slow progress over the past two weeks, but a lot of progress over the few days seeing as I've got some vacation.

First off. I finished the plasma effect on the Deredeo. It took a little longer as the larger coils called for a slightly different approach to the little plasma weapons. Those were done easily by basecoating them white, drybrushing Gobling Green, and drybrushing Ork Flesh (Yes, I still have paintable paint from way back when the animals were still talking).
For the larger coils on the dread, I needed to clean up quite a few areas and drybrush again, and in the end I gave the coils a wash of extremely tint of Goblin Green, with a light touch-up drybrush of Ork Flesh.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0263.JPG

And then the time was ripe for a little side track. A friend of mine got the Rising Sun boardgame that has a metric ****-ton of awesome miniatures and I greedily jumped on the opportunity to paint them. But seeing as those minis have a 'canon' colour scheme that goes with the game, it means that I had to push the shades of red I had to extremes that I rarely dared upon before. It took me quite a while, sitting down in front of my painting desk, and after reaching enlightenment, and squinting really, really hard for a very long time, I began to discern difference in shade and tint.

First up is the Oni of Plagues, this guy:
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/Onioriginal.png

Seeing as it a mini with rippling muscle and flowing robes I needed to revisit another ancient technique I don't use often; blending.
I decided to have a goo ad the very finnicky 'selective blending' that a lot of CMON folks have mastered. Damn tricky, but fun to do, if not extremely time consuming.
And of course, this particular oni had to be to be the most difficut red of them all, something called 'hwhite'!

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0257.JPG

But it's not too shabby for a first attempt, I hope. I also realised that I just can't treat these models as ultimate show pieces because theer are dozens of them. And I've got more incming, also from a few kickstarted board games I backed myself, although those are still a few months away.

Any feedback and c&c is welcome. I'm particularly interested in tricks & tips on how to have a speedy painting process while still maintaining a decent level of quality.

[Blackadder]

I really really like the reflected glare of the green laser tubing effect on the surrounding metal but my own personal opinion is that red (rust in this case) and green clash too much and that blue might be more pleasing. Of course on an other worldly device such as this the reverse might be de rigeur.

[Meph]

Oh, sorry for the late reply. Ah true, blue might give it a good look as well. The main reason for green is to stick with the limited colour palette I've got going on.

I finally got round to put the photos I took Sunday onto the PC. The vehicles are a bit shiny right now as they're in their gloss coat to apply the decals. I'll blend them in over the week, and then I can move on.

In the end I decided not to further embellish the front bumper. The decals on the flanks are already pushing the limit in terms of visual balance. But I wanted to stick with the insignia standards I've got going on in the army. Vehicle number in normal- and roman numbering, a campaign badge, a few chapter badges, and the black blood drop for the 5th company, and then some bling here and there.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0267.JPG

The dread received the same insignia, and I managed to put a fancy ribbon on his hoodie collar, although the gloss coat makes it difficult to see.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0271.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0275.JPG


And then the Oni. It was touch-and-go for a moment and I was just working with the darkest tone, got a phonecall, and fumbled gloriously... But I did manage to straighten it out a bit. I think I'll just do a few more highlights and then move on. I realized that I have little over a month to go before our annual gaming weekend and I've got a box full of minis to paint. Not the whole Rising Sun box of minis though, just a selection. the whole box is easily over 60 minis... :S


http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0278.JPG

But yeah, so I'll need to paint them a lot quicker, or at least get them to a visually interesting stage, and hope they survive a few games without a protective coat on. Luckily most of the crew are familiar with miniature games so there's only minimal chance of ham-fisted babooning.

[Meph]

Sorry for the lack of updates, guys, I'v'e been spending little time on the forae, as well as my painting desk.
But I've been painting for an hour here and there, and things are slowly chugging along.

The Blood Angels have had their decals blended it, a coat of airbrushed satin varnish, and ready to have their ***** weathered off.
The first little layer of metallic sponge chipping is already on there :)

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0516.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0522.JPG

And the first three Oni are almost done. Honestly, the're not the best models I ever did, but made the hard choice of sacrificing quality for speed. Since the models are legion, and they're going to be used frequently for gaming. So three down, around 40-50 to go, lol. I've got the two next ones in undercoat, and two more that need a wash & scrub.
But anyways, tadaa!

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0286.JPG

[Meph]

Ok, some painting got done. The past few months have been way too hot to paint during the day so progress has been very slow. But I did manage to sneak in the odd half hour here and there during the evenings.

The land speeder is finished. Although I might touch up the weathering powders here and there.
I just noticed that one of my lights was still set to a yellowish light when taking the photo's so I think I'll take some new pics later.
The Stormtalon has been undercoated, a golden stripe added to the wings, and the cockpit done. Tomorrow I'll glue the cockpit shut, mask it, second undercoat, and then she's good to go.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0680.JPG

The Deredeo is actually also finished but since the base flock is drying, pics will come later.


And then I spent some time making a new model of one of the characters of out Warhammer Fantasy campaign four years in the making. Gotrak (no relation), the Daemon Slayer of the party who got his arm lobbed off some sessions ago. He promptly invested his hard-earned gold to go to a dwarven engineer and requisition a steam-powered punching arm.
Just a quick kit-bash of some bits and bobs, and a daring foray into greenstuff world to make some straps.

Oh, and a bit by accident I stumbled across a nice little bust online, which will make a nice birthday present when finished. :)

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG-20180729-WA0001.jpg


So, some stuff finished, some stuff progressed, and there's more to come. Onwards!

[Blackadder]

Worst Case of Crabs Ever!19950

[Meph]

lol, yeah. She's got all kinds of nasty stuff under that gown.

[Meph]

Thank the gods that the heatwave is over! Finally was able to put in an afternoon of painting without paint drying in an instant!

Deredeo finished and based. I must say I'm pleased with the model. Boaty McBoatface really grew on me, and I have his bigger brother Leviathan lined up as well. :-P

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0019.JPG
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0023.JPG


The Tempest Land Speeder is also done. And the Stormtalon redesign has gotten its cockpit masked and base coat put on. I'm actually looking foward to see how that one turns out, as I do think it's already looking spiffy in red, evenifIfdosaysomyself.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0032.JPG


And then... Gotrak's buste got some paint splatted on. I must say I am liking it a lot playing around with glazes, but I also constantly am catching myself subconsciously losing patience and speeding up way too much. there are lots of little drying marks all over the place, but nothing too destructive I feel. Some spots can be blended in when I start highlighting, other might be turned into little skin blemishes.

So far I have just done some shading while keeping in the 'three-band' theory in mind; i.e.: top yellow, mid red, lower blue. I also used some purple for shading on the cheeks, and darkening the are around his eyes. I want him to have a somewhat tired look and reddened cheeks & nose from excessive drinking (it's a dwarf after all). I think the model might even be just big enough to use some red cloth fibers to put some veins on the eye whites.

But considering this is my first forray in large bustes with realistic humanoid skin tones, I'm open for any advice, tips & tricks, etc. The skin is full of wonderful little details, like tiny wrinkles and cuts and I'm wondering how to bring those out the best. thinned glazes/washes, perhaps some thinned oil paint? Or should I apply a very, very fine drybrushed highlight here and there to really pick out the edges of said cuts & wrinkles?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0012.JPG

[Blackadder]

Fantastic! Are you sculpting and kitbashing these or are the production busts and vehicles?

[Meph]

Well, the Tempest Land Speeder and Derereredeo Dread are Forgeworld models, unaltered. The Stormtalon is a heavy conversion of the original model. And the bust is a lucky online find.

[metallian]

I loooooove that glowing green on the dread.

[Meph]

Cheers man! The glow is deceptively easy: white coat, gentle drybrush with Goblin Green, gentle drybrush with Ork Flesh, and that's it. :)

I decided to give the hair a base coat (it's going to be a ginger dwarf), just to see how the skin actually looked with some colour around it. I'm not too sure how far I should push the shadows as I feel the skin has a quite realistic look at the moment. Mind you, in the flesh the whole red shading on the cheeks and nose somehow does appear a bit darker than on photo.

I'm wondering, how far would you guys push it?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0038.JPG

To compare, I took some phone photos.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG-20180813-WA0002.jpeg

And then I finished the red on the Stormtalon. The red came out just a tad darker than usual, but that's OK. I was very eager to get the making tape off to see how the stripes looked, and I'm quite pleased with the results. That black and gold sure does give it an old kitch look, doesn't it?

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0043.JPG

[Meph]

Today I felt like assembling something...
Guess who's coming to dinnaaah, not de dreadnot.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/IMG_20180816_174737.jpg

[Meph]

Woops, seem like I fell of the edge of the Earth there again for a while. Some time has passed, but I haven't been sitting still. September was filled for the most part with an awesome trip around BC in Canada, and in October I had some weekends away, including a two-day excursion to Essen Spiel 2018. Man, that was a blast again as usual.

Anywhooo, the fruits of my labour:

First up, I had some progress on the Leviathan. Black undercoat as usual, red basecoat, and the drybrush highlights + washes & glazes.
I have him some striping on his right torso as it seems I have become addicted to masking tape. But damn, that beast is all curves & angles, and in the end, I had to make a compromise between either super-straight lines that lay a bit uncomfortable on the overall shape, or go with more balanced proportion, but not having them all straight at all angles. I chose the latter and I'm OK with the result, but not super-duper happy either. Ah well we'll see how it goes with decals & weathering...

Also, the Stormtalon rebuild got some good progress, highlights are done, and weathering is coming along nicely. I must say, that ugly duckling is growing on me as the painting progresses.

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0242B.JPG

And I have also been painting some other minis as well as assembling.

First up, the five standard Party Guests from Monster Slaughter, a kickstarted boardgame that arrived the same day I came back from Essen Spiel. Awesome game, and a bucket load of cool minis.
It was a quick & easy paint job, done in a few hours. i think I have some 40-dd minis to go on that boardgame.

Then, the Eisenkern APC. Now thàt was a joy to build. Way more intricate than GW models and more akin to the military modeling kits of old. Loads of moving parts as well. Turrets move and extend, all hatches open, there's even an engine under the bonnet!
Oh, the windows look a wit weird as they have a coat of liquid mask on them to protect them from painting.

And last but not least, a squad of Primaris Reavers and a captain, and a 10-man Tartaros Terminator squad. half GW, half Forgeworld. The white shoulder bits on the GW ones are from shapeways and have a 3D BA symbol on them. I actually had enough to give the Forgeworld ones some as well, but then I assume they would never be able to be selected for the FW website anymore as they have recently have removed the photos of my Spartan which had the metal replacement tracks... :-/

http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0241.JPG

Anyways, I'm back in the saddle and boy I sure have some catching up to do by reading the threads from you folks. Cheers!

[Meph]

Alrighty, some stuff got done!

The Storm Talon is done! Unwrapped the cockpit after weathering and varnish, and tadaaa. Still an ugly ducking, but better than the original I think. :)
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0274.JPG

The Leviathan Dread also went through the weathering and varnish. I though I was finished and it just dawned upon me that the base is still missing... dagnabbit!
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0288.JPG

Some other stuff in the pipeline. The humble beginnings of my non-GW Imperial Guard detachment, possible with a non-GW Sisters-Of-Battle detachment.
http://www.postwarvandal.com/Meph/Land_Raiders/BA/DSC_0279.JPG

I still have to come up with a colour scheme, lol. I narrowed down the choices to either an olive drab or a WW2 Wehrmacht grey... I wonder what would look best on that APC? I'm slowly starting to lean towards the olive drab but I'm curious about your thoughts...
And to whet you appetite, yesterday I took all that I have so far of the non-GW stuff and laid it out on the table. It's already quite a bit, and I still have two Kickstarters incoming, well, three to be exact. :)
I put the photos in an imgur gallery so I don't clutter the thread too much.

https://imgur.com/a/kShJlz1

Depending on how it goes, I might even add some GW tanks or APC's as well. Oh, which reminds me, I still have a GW superheavy in a box somewhere... Time for an archeologic expedition under my painting desk!