into the shadows..... building a full company

[olberon]

-Intro-
This is my First log here. I was listening to deliverance lost and did som research during listening to it. and found out that raven guard are really a chapter for me. I love black armour and the challenge it is to paint it correctly. I looked at black templars but decided these guys just didnt cut it for me, way to regligious for my liking. So Raven guard it is. i love their combat doctorine and really want to make a really fluffy army with plenty of droppods,assault marines and scouts.
I soon made the choice of using ALOT of droppods. I like the model and the ability to drop a unit practicly where ever you want on the table make it even harder for me to resist.

-The goal-
After the tragic loss of my 9 full companies of Blood Angels i realised after switching around quite alot in chapters that ravenguard was the chapter for me. So to start of "slow" im planning for just a company for the time being. painting it up in block of 2500pts.

-The inventory-
I compiled a list of stuff i already have in my invetory to start of on my fist 2500 points:
» Kayvaan Shrike (conversion) (see WIP further down)
» Librarian (conversion)
» 1x dreadnought
» 5x terminators
» 10x scouts with boltguns
» 10x scouts with sniper rifles
» 10x tactical marines with heavy bolter and plasmagun
» 10x tactical marines with heavy bolter and plasmagun
» 10x tactical marines with heavy bolter and meltagun
» 10x assault marines with ccw's and plasma's or flamers
» 1x Landspeeder typhoon
» 1x Stormtalon Gunship
» 5x devastator marines with lascannons
» 6x droppods



-pre work-

-Decals
being lazy and having a bucket load of transfersheets collecting dust i decided to make my own decal sheet for the raven guard. Based on an exsisting one i found over at bolter and chainsword. I remodified it to hold more decals and resized most of them to fit the shoulderpads better.
The sheet including refitting on shoulderpads took me a whole day in total and here is the result
The spot left blank on version 1 is intentional, i still need to fill it with stuff. Version 2 fits even better on shoulderpads even the scouts ones fit like a glove

Version 1:
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/A3_CHARACTER_SHEET.png

Version 2:
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/A3_CHARACTER_SHEET-1.png

- Jumppacks
I really like pre-heresy jumppacks so the step to making them myself where a pretty easy one. i soon found a tutorial on these -rather large- jumppacks and made a test one for my HQ -see later pictures-

-Work in progress Kayvaan Shrike-
as said earlier, the company is led by kayvaan Shrike and so decided to start on the conversion of that guy. this is the result, please note hes using th preheresy jumppack i told you about earlier. The original model looks pretty cool but i really wanted to make my own version of the guy.

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3706.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3708.jpg
o, i dont like them, they are going to be red for all my models, Bright red is my aim...

[olberon]

As you can se he is a total conversion, i actually bought a finecrap model but returned it to the shop asking my cash back (my granny makes better casts)
and went on the conversion route as soon as i got home, ok hes missing some raven guard tokens and insignia's but otherwise hes looking okay in my opion.

-work in progress (Test model tactical squad I) -
As carefull as i am and since painting high quality black armour is new to me i wnet for a test model first.
tho Kayvaan Shrike also was somewhat of a tst case for me.

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3709.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3710.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3711.jpg

Tho he looks okay(ish) im not to happy with the results they dont have the effect im looking for. so a bath of brak fluid is waiting for them;)

Note on the decals: The decals are a bit hard since they need a white background -and the armour is black - so i used a little trick there,I airbrush one of the shoulderpads white and apply the decal as normal,then dump the decal on top of that,paint the rest of the pad black when the decal has dried completly. it works great!!

The rims on the pads are green on this model also, i dont like them, they are going to be red for all my models, Bright red is my aim...

[olberon]

After spending last night with a fair bit of insomnia i decided to device a new black pattern for my Raven Guard.
and after a few trials and errors i found out this was the best result. I really hate the way GW lits up thir highlights and im always looking for a more neutral approach on the subject. The big plus is that you dont have th really sharp edges (which imo look horrible!) but a more subtle toning, making the highlights looking more neutral Bad thing if you have a bad camera (like me) but in real life it looks great!

This is what i came up with:
1. Spray undercoat black
2. Broad highlights Raven Guard Grey *
3. Nuln Oil Wash
4. Fine highlight of 50/50 Raven Guard Grey/ Standard Mechanicus
5. Final highlight of Standard Mechanicus
6. Glaze Abaddon Black
7. Touch up any mistakes with Abaddon Black

* is a mix 50/50 mix Eshin Grey/ Abaddon Black

Also did some work on my decals before printing.
Result of a few hours fitting and clipping

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/A3_CHARACTER_SHEET-2.png
To be printed on white

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/A3_CHARACTER_SHEET_transparent.png
To be printed on transparent

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/A3_markings_SHEET.png
Marking still a Work in progress (looking for pics with personal heraldies (raven skulls ravens etc)

[olberon]

since there is always a need to start with one squad, i decided to start of with my dvastators.
The squad look like this
1x vet sergeant
4x marine with lascannons
1x droppod

The vetran sergeant is almost done so i tought id share a few pics with you all.

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3781.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3782.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3783.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3784.jpg

C&C always welcome

[energongoodie]

That veteran sergeant looks bada$$! Great posing BOLS chum.

[olberon]

that veteran sergeant looks bada$$! Great posing bols chum.
thx!!

[ElectricPaladin]

Uh... what happened to your Blood Angels? How were they lost?

Anyway, I love the way your Raven Guard are turning out, and I'm eager to see more.

Btw, you might want to consider buying white waterslide transfer paper. That makes it easier to get bright colors on dark backgrounds. I've been using it for my Exorcists, and it turns out pretty well. The only drawback is unless the background color on the decal matches the background color of the mini perfectly, you might have to do some touch-ups once the decal has dried.

[olberon]

-progress-
Yesterday i had a bit of an off day painting wise, i quit smoking -which is good since im now saving 5euro's a day for my hobby- and to keep my mind of smoking i went for painting a marine with lascannon for my devastator squad. problem is im a bi shakey at the momnt, so the mini doesnt look as nice as the last one
any how here are some pics of my latest progress.

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3802.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3803.jpg

and started to work on my 2nd marine with lascannon, after this one only 2 more to go!

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3807.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3808.jpg

Im still not sure about th coils on my lascannons, should i go for dark lascoils or the bright way. ??

With that question ill leave you all for today !
offcourse C7C are always welcome

[Bigred]

WOW, that Vet Serg looks like BOSS!

The pale skin looks very cool. It's very rare to see someone really go to town with Raven Guard and give em the respect a 1st Founding chapter deserves.

I'll be following this one.

[olberon]

thx red!!

Just found out i have my chaptersymbol and squad markings mixed up. what do you guys think, change or leave thm in place??

[fuzzbuket]

as someone whos struggleing with the white helms of a IF tactical squad *those are fantastic :D the white is perfect and i love shrikes eyes.

-fuzz

*the helms are white because feth you im a narhwal and it looked too yellow.

[SotonShades]

If that Lascannon is when you're a bit shakey, I think you're fine lol. Looks great.

I prefer the brighter las coils. Nicer contrast to otherwise very (appropriately) dark models. Ditto on what BigRed said about the Serg's skin. Phenomanal work there.

Also, very well done quitting smoking. It's going to be hard, but it will deffinately get easier. My uncle recently quite after 33 years of smoking. After 6 months he stopped getting cravings and now (8 or 9 months I think?) he cannot believe he ever smoked as he is enjoying the taste and smell of food so much more and how everything smells fresher because he doesn't smell of smoke.

[Cursed13]

I'd like to point out two commonly overlooked items on the Ravenguard paint scheme. First of all, the left pauldron trim(where the chapter badge is supposed to go) should always be black, this trim is never coloured with the squad colours (Red - Assault, Green - Tactical, Yellow - Devastator). Also the exhaust vents on backpacks should also be silver/grey. I'd also like to point out for accuracy, your Shrike's right pauldron trim should be painted red.

[olberon]

Main problem with Raven guard is, and the reason why there are not so many pics of them, is that GW and FW both kinda screwed up this chapter, giving them alot of different ways to display the squad markings/chapter symbols etc.

Im planning on going the midlle of the road:

Vieuwing from the front:

Left shoulder:
- Squad symbol on shoulder
- company marking on rim

Right shoulder:
- Chapter symbol
- no rim markings

in essence following this:
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/300px-Raven_Guard_Scheme.jpg

[olberon]

-update-
i just wanted to say i have the best dad in the world!!!!
He came by my house with a bunch of new brushes he picked up for me
2x raphael 8404 00 and 2x raphael 8404 0

since i know hes reading this :
Thx old man!!!! now buy yourself a battle force and start painting yourself! (dont care what mom says hahahahahaha)

[olberon]

-Update-
Tonight i worked on completing my devastator squad. And finally got around to actually completing the whole squad!
I hope you all like on how they look.

-pics-
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3830.jpg
Whole Squad

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3832.jpg
Whole squad (top)

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3834.jpg
2 man

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3837.jpg
2man

i really like how they came out since i was expecting them to ble either really colourfull blobs of plastic or the way they are now.
im not to happy about the bases yet, but they are surely redone. Tonight im starting my new project, the droppod for this unit so ill keep you all updated.

[Aspire to Glory]

Good to see someone putting together some awesome Raven Guard! Keep it up!

[olberon]

So no updates for almost a week. I was sick and had to be taken to the hospital again. But today i finally got around to do some stuff.
i started on the droppod for the devastator squad.

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3871.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3873.jpg

My wife started on the titan we have been planning for the army:
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3864.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3863.jpg

[Autarch]

Very cool. Ever since I read about Corax in First Heretic, I've really loved the Raven Guard. BTW what happened to your blood angels?

[olberon]

@Autarch: thx for the compliments! i too really love them their scheme is really simple once you get the black down. Trick is to get all the black done in one go and then start working on the details. Dont be horrified what happended to my BA force, my ex went completly bonkers on them destroyed every single one of my miniaures beyond repair so yeah that kinda sucked.

-UPDATE-
Kinda grew tired of looking at the bases fro my devstator squad so i tried to make a new concept for my bases
theme of the bases is a flagstone base with parts of ruined bases. im thiniking about using my molding experience to make some plaster casts from them so i can mass produce them fairly quikly
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/549844_296288160442147_1795337881_n.jpg

Tell me what you guys think :P

[olberon]

-update-
Taking it really easy - just like the docter ordered. im almost done with my droppod so i thought ipost a small update.
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3913.jpg

Also i started o prepare my wifes red corsair -read renegade space wolves- army. so here's a small teaser for that -soon to be blogged- army. Model shown is a possesed
http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3882.jpg
(really like the pose of this model, he is like WTF look at my hand!!)

[ElectricPaladin]

Quick question: I see that, in many ways, you are a building a diverse force. However, I also know that you play and paint with the background in mind. What kind of choices are you making around your army to reflect the style and specialities of the Raven Guard?

[olberon]

good question electric;
to be honest the choises i make are pretty simple based on their doctorine.
- they are stealth so the use of scouts is always a good one!
- they are fast in fast out so droppods are the way to go

yes i may make sacrefices on tanks this way, im not a single one, but hell is a fluffy army which at least on paer will be a decent army to play with.

[olberon]

-Update-
yay!!!
Finally after 3 weeks of painting my first droppod is almost done!
Im really happyabout the result the highlights came out pretty good and the black is de way I intended that i should be.

It still needs a dash of weathering but after that its completly done

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3925.jpg
closed

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3927.jpg
open

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3930.jpg
With attached devastator squad

off to my next project which will be...........
be sure to keep reading to find out all about it

[olberon]

-Update-
After having a bit of a slow week and a somewhat painting depression i decided to start my next litlle project a 10 man tactical squad with a melta gun, heavy bolter, droppod and a tooled up combimelta sergeant all mounted in -how could it be different- a droppod.

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3968.jpg

-Tactical question-
So i upgraded my army from a 2500 point army to a 3k army giving me some room to play around with my assault squad which will be upgraded to a 10 man vanguard squad, Shrike and a chaplain i was wondering how to best make use of the equipment for my vanguards. I really want to have the maximum close combat potential from this squad so strike fast and strike even harder.
also did some counting on attacks for that unit and was wondering if i was correct about the amount of attacks from the complete unit which i came to the total amount of 49. with rerolls in the first charge due to the chaplains rule. but please corrent me if im wrong :P

[olberon]

im not too happy with my casts of the MKVI heads and since im refusing to pay over € 2,00 per head (i already need over 40) im looking for options on how to still get the MKVI heads. i just woke up - major hangover- and decided to have a go at making my own helmets. here's the result of just 10 minutes of sculpting.

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3972.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3973.jpg

Still needs a lot of smoothening out but im geting there.

casting the helmets takes around 30 minutes per 8 and i miscast around half of them due to air bubbles and the detail isnt that stunning and ther is a weird moldline on some of the hemets due to misallignment. of the mold.

So tell me what would you do;
a) keep casting somewhat inferior MKVI's
b) break out the GS and sculpt your own

[olberon]

Hooray its time for a little insomnia so it is time to get the creative juices flowing. as i said in my last post i was exploring the possebility of making my own MKVI helmets from standard helmets and a little greenstuff well to be honest i liked the prototype so much i decided to tear off the old heads clean the head sockets and convert me some heads

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3986.jpg

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3987.jpg

And after a quick look on the FW site i decided to give ALL my tactcal squads the honours they deserve yes you guessed it right studded shoulderpads. made a prototype of that too

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh593/warhammerpaintservice/raven%20guard/100_3983.jpg
i need to give it a bit less studs tho to make them look better!

also some great news on a personal note: im getting an ipad today!!!! Last xmass gift from my wife

[olberon]

today ill be making studded shoulderpads (bit less studs)

shoulderpads [check]
sandpaper [check]
clothing pins [check]
glue [check]

lets get sanding!!!

[olberon]

took some time of with my ravenguard to start painting my daemon army (which is my backup army) but now back !! todays plans are slapping some paint on my tactical squad. few cool facts on them:
- they all have beaky heads (converted)
- they all have studded shoulderpads (converted)
- they all have converted bolter (converted)
- they all have new bases
- they ride a droppod (ofc^^)