Janissarie PIP part 2

Janissarie work, body is pretty much finished except for the holster, just arms to do and a little tidying up.

Haqqislam + Janissarie PIP part 1

This is just some progress on my haqqislam starter set.

I started with the coolest model in the pack, being the power armoured Janissarie. I was severely tempted to paint it in the iron man colours, but I resisted. I decided on going for a very simple restricted colour scheme as I didn't want to complicate these excellent sculpts and I love the simple colour palette in certain scifi for example DICE's mirrors edge and Bethesda soft's Brink as well as the general close future parkour element. So I will be painting it in oranges, blues and browns (I really don't like green after painting an entire cadian 8th company.) So this is about 5 hours in, the armour has been base-coated and all the shadows have been put in, the left leg has had highlights, whilst the rest is lacking.

General scheme is a sortoff proto desert/ urban scheme, I'm just going for something clean and looks nice.

I also cannot recommend infinity enough, the sculpts are beautiful and so much better than anything I've had from GW IMO and pictures don't give them the justice they deserve.

So I will continue with the rest of him tomorrow.

This is one of the studio mcvey Isabella models, which I was given for Xmas, I'm tempted to use as a hassassin faday, who is like a callidus assassin posing as a noble as it is 28mm true scale. Thoughts?

Also this was the test paint for the sniper...lets just say it got too complicated and I didn't like the finished product, so he will be stripped and repainted in the new style.

Thanks for looking.

Okay I'm back.

Thanks to Scarvald reminding me, I've decided to continue with this blog. I've recently been having major problems with justifying my large warhammer collection and continuing with it, I don't like games workshop, my bank account doesn't like games workshop. I also can't remain motivated to paint over 50 models just because I can (I think the grey knights will be the last large army I ever paint) I've tried ultramarines first company as well as alpha legion, both haven't re-ignited the spark of warhammer 40k and it's large armies. As well as exams, my last one is on the 27th of June, so then I will have lots of time off unless I get a job.

So now what am I doing now? I'm currently going back to what I did between 2008 and 2010, I'm on a 40k hiatus, I won't be buying any new 40k stuff nor games workshop in general. However I am getting into infinity and I have another friend who is interested too. I bought the Haqqislam starter box-set cause it looks cool and I like the units as well as I have to at max paint 20 models. So once I've located all my tools I've misplaced since this April I will be getting on with those. I'm also making a couple of fallout inspired costumes for a convention this October, if you're interested and I will be posting the progress on them up too.




Thanks for staying patient.

Legionnaires, airplanes and apologies.

Hi sorry I've been a little inconsistent with my updates over the last week, University interviews and then exam results on Saturday. I managed to get into Keele university to do Biochemistry with a minor in psychology, though I missed my preferred option of Kent university by 12 marks, so now I need to hear back from them and decide whether to retake my pesky Newtonian physics module (I suck at maths).

So that's why there has been a lack of updates.









So my first squad of legionnaires (count as legion auxilia), there's been some initial work done, but loads more to be done. There's a brilliant mix of sources here, ghosts, fw cadian upgrades, pig iron kolony militia heads, to build up a really varied squad, the downside being they don't look very cohesive, but as legionnaires it makes sense.






I'm quite pleased with how the vulture is coming along, as this is a navy unit that has been inducted into a guard regiment, it has different markings to the valkyrie as well as a slightly modified camo scheme. Now awaiting battle damage.




Another project that I've had in the works for ages is the space hulk box-set.









This is the "techie" terminator, don't know his name, but it's given me a nice chance to play around with some NMM and OSL effects.




@Silar Lannanaris I will endevor to send out your heads tomorrow, as said earlier I haven't had a chance to send them.


Also @ Skarvald the Trollfaced Please could you message me your address, if you do not by friday, I will redraw another name from the group.

Pig-iron head set competition winners!

Okay using the class tools random name/ word picker http://www.classtools.net/education-games-php/fruit_machine (I'm not sure if it is definitively random, but it's random enough for me.)

So we have two winners, each will be receiving a set of Kolony militia head sprues.

So that's Skarvald the Trollfaced and Silar Lannanaris, pm or email me your addresses and I will try to send them out ASAP.

Thanks to everyone who entered.

Pig-iron head set competition...Last day!

Last day of the Pig Iron head competition, click on the link to be redirected to the competition page.

Pig Iron head competition reminder...finishes this Sunday.

Just to remind you there are only two days left on my Pig Iron head competition, click on the link to be redirected to the competition page.

Valkyrie painting development.

Okay the Valkyrie is 90% complete, weathering is done, I'm just going to hold off painting the landing gear, weapons and sensors till I've gotten to the same stage with my vulture. Chipping was done with a brush and VMC hull red, concentrating it round leading edges. Decided to not do any rust, as in desert environments, rust wouldn't develop (look at Mojave Airport ) the majority of weathering will be sand, so paint will be removed like a sand blaster. Extra weathering was provided by Promodeller dirt washes.

This is Alpha plane of Echo flight, of the 1st squadron of the 590th CAS wing, fleet Ultima Segmentum. Squadron motto "Strength before pride." 

Valkyrie painting in progress.

Just a post showing the PIP on my valkyrie.

 Pre-shading.

Desert camouflage application.

Thanks for looking.

Desert camo schemes

So this is just a blog post detailing my thought process for both the vulture and valkyrie, I used to do these for design and technology as a design brief and I think it will help out with some of the eventual problems, if you're not interested in long posts please look away now.

What colours?

Desert camo is a must, therefore what schemes.

1. A single coat (most likely to be applied by lazy servitors, easy and looks okay but will require more effort to look good.)
2. Dual colour camo scheme, effective and will look good.
3. More complex camo schemes, a large chance of it looking "busy".

Examples:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2360/1672107197_913c5ce9cf.jpg
BF110 RAF Museum london

from 291st DKOK blog I encourage you to visit
An excellent example of a balanced camo scheme.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3043/bruntinthorp2249.jpg

A desert Pink, a little too pink for my tastes.

http://media.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_F-16_in_KA2-Desert_lg.jpg

Too busy, wouldn't look very good on a model this size.

http://www.florymodels.co.uk/lightning-royal-saudi-air-forc/

Another good example, easy to do and will look good.

http://www.gatwick-aviation-museum.co.uk/victor/graphics/victor1.jpg
Victor in "hemp" a light desert camo.

My personal favorite scheme is desert pink, though realistic and it should blend in well with the desert sand. Though I don't want to have someone when I'm playing question my choice of pink valks and vultures. So compromise would be VMC Iraqi sand, which is sand with a hint of pink. I really like the 291st DKOK scheme though, but a differing camo scheme in the style of the BF101, but with a slightly reduced amount of squiggles, in a brown, probably Citadel Graveyard earth. As the aircraft are in a CAS (close air support) role, I'm not sure if there is any point in painting the bottom of the aircraft in a lighter colour (don't know the technical name).

Also if you can't tell my favorite aircraft ever is the HP Victor.

Weathering

A mixture of promodeller washes, gw washes and oils will be used, I will be making chipping using the good old sponge technique (I could use hairspray but the undercolour would be too dark as I want a washed out desert look.) 

Preshading

Will be done in all panel lines, pretty standard don't have to go through it.

All other areas including weapons will be painted VGC Black. Engines on the vilture will be painted similarly to the Valkyrie engines with masking tape to cover the painted areas.

So yeah list of materials:

Primer: Tamiya fine surface primer.

Preshading: VGC Charred brown

Basecoat: VMC Iraqi Sand

2nd coat: CC Graveyard earth

Weathering: Promodeller washes, CC washes, mig and forgeworld pigments, windsor and newton oils.

I should have pictures of the WIP tomorrow.

Sorry for the epic long post, thanks for looking.

(I do not own any of these pictures, I have endeavored to link back and give credit to people, if you are the rights holder to this and take issue, please tell me and I will remove them.)

Air tuesday

So since Saturday I haven't done very much, taken two days off doing nothing except watch Stargate SG1. Today I finally started work on the two flyers I bought ages ago for my failed airborne IG army. One being a Vulture the other a vendetta, under the guise of working on my alpha legion army (they need aircraft right?) Now I've stopped flying them around making airplane noises and dakka dakka noises (I'm still a teenager and gorramit I'm not going to stop) I have pictures.

Waiting on magnets to mangnetise the weapons, so the vulture can have interesting load-outs.

Painted parts so far.

For the engines I was looking around and found this website tutorial aircraftresourcecenter bare metal weathering which is very nice, but not extremely detailed and with only burnt umber oil washes, gw washes and promodeller wash I got something to this effect, which isn't half as good, but looks better than just metal (I may get some tamiya clear at some point.) The cockpit is pretty basic, didn't spend a huge amount of time on it because the canopy will cover it and there isn't a huge amount you can do with it.

Both will be getting a weathered desert camo scheme, but first I need to finish the gap filling on the vulture and then its engine.

Thanks for looking.

Pig Iron head competition reminder...one week left!

Just to remind you there is exactly one week left on my Pig Iron head competition, click on the link to be redirected to the competition page.

Grey Knights Finished.

Link to the ebay page for this army I will consider most offers, is currently going for buy it now at £400 + p+p

Grey Knight Land Raider (tanktherapy)

 Tadaa!

So the whole shebang is drawing to a close, just waiting on some hatches to finish drying and then the whole landraider can go together, going to get up early tomorrow to fully finish the army there is very little left so I will have pictures tomorrow/ Sunday. Also I like tanks.

Yesterday I went to GW to play a game, got completely steamrolled by an ork army (literally damn deathrollers) but I like gaming time to time even if I suck.

Any questions about stuff please ask.

Thanks for looking.

Alpha Knights?

Pictures of how I've ruined  done my Grey Knights!

And also bonus Alpha Legion pictures:

List of things to do tomorrow and Friday:

1. Clean up terminators.
2. Finish basing all the Grey Knights.
3. Paint black rim around said bases.
4. Begin building Land Raider.
5. Paint Land Raider.
6. Take pictures of the Land Raider.

So yeah fun, but well within my ability.

Thanks for looking.

Also don't forget about my Pig-Iron head competition here.

Alpha Legion update

So the grey knights are 99% done, I need to tidy up one terminator (too much blue), but the rest are now gluing to their bases, so pictures will be put up today/tomorrow. Then onto the tanks.

Anyway, with my alpha legion, I've finished a mk5/mk4 hybrid marine who I'm waiting on to dry then will be painted up as an alpha legionnaire, I also have a sniper/marksman awaiting the GS broadening of the shoulders.

The tactical marine will be painted up in alpha legion colours and the sniper in the desert camouflage on the heavy bolter marines.

Pig-iron head set competition.

So to commemorate 500 blog views and a month of full on blogging when it finishes, I am offering up two sets of pig iron kolony militia head sprues this is a 20 head sprue which integrate well with the Cadian plastics.

The competition runs from today the 22nd of February till 8pm GMT on Sunday the 6th of March, and entries after this will be discounted.

Conditions for entry:

• You must be a follower of this blog, though you can join anytime and once the competition is over and you really hate me, you can un-follow me.
• You must comment on this blog post before the end time.
• Entries are Worldwide, entries outside the UK will be sent via airmail.
• Also if you have a blog, please put a link in your comment on this, because (thanks AoM) I would like to see it.
• One entry per person, to keep it fair.
• Once I've drawn the names, I will announce them on my blog and I will contact you.

Commission offer

With my Grey Knights 90% complete (finally) I have decided to step up my commissions, so I am offering for the first 3 people who commissions me to paint an army >1000pts I will offer a choice of: a 10 man 25mm squad painted up to my base standard for free, or a 5 man 40mm squad painted for free, or a small vehicle (rhino, drop pod, leman russ) painted for free.

So if you want to take me up on this offer and discuss it, feel free to hit me up on starforgedminiatures@gmail.com.

Thanks.

Alpha Legion

So I'm really busy with my work on the grey knights at the moment, so lack of blog updates is to be understood.

But anyway I have some fluff I was writing up for my alpha legion force (WIP).

“Alpharius grew too out of touch with his origins, he was audacious, he was a fool.  He struck up an alliance with horus well before I knew, we played along with his plan, till he was gone, then I saw MY legion fall apart.”

Quote from Traitor Primarch Omegon.

After the battle with the ultramarines post heresy, the alpha legion was splintered, a large majority of the brothers went fully to chaos, betraying one of their primarchs, venerating the other.  These warbands remained mildly organised but non could keep their “productivity” after they left Omegon. These pirates and raiders are now what the imperium refers to as the Alpha Legion now, they have been involved in many small conflicts, from Vraks to Krieg to Kronos.

The real threat to the imperium is the faction that still calls itself ”loyal” to the imperium.. These forces led by primarch Omegon. After their destruction at the hand of the Ultramarines, this force loyal to Omegon, mainly contained human operatives, due to his direcct involvement in the infiltration part of the legion. Fewer than a thousand brothers remained, though thought to be some of the best Space marines ever to be created.  This force is believed to be the first renegade group to capture an Adeptus Mechanicus cloning facility and be able to maintain a small stream of recruits to support their ranks.

Organisation

For normal operations, a force of 60 space marines is assigned per theatre, these may be broken up into usually 1 high ranking captain or equivalent, 5 apothecaries  (the actual function of these is disputed but believed for the augmentation of new operatives) and 44 tactical marines.

This force is supported by over 200 operatives, usually brought from a previous conflict, these are comprised of veteran guardsmen, psykers, gene-bulked shock troopers and assorted personnel.

The Alpha legion prefers to initiate control over a planet by first training up (or brainwashing) dissidents  and allow them to spread like a cancer through the imperial system, disrupting supply lines, communications and most importantly imperial armed forces. The second stage extends their training to insurgent forces, who will go out and cause large amounts of destruction. The third stage is all out war, large amounts of insurgents will rise from the population, causing almost immediate destruction  of the imperial system. Alpha legionnaires will then target vital command points, generatum, star ports and heavy units, usually tanks or other space marines.

So pretty much to summarise this is a post heresy alpha legion force who consider themselves as anti-imperium and anti-chaos, like the cabal intended, but with some obvious changes, their mission failed, Omegon is descending into madness at the destruction of his legion, the betrayal of his brother and his place in the universe.

Today Power Armour! Tomorrow the World! (or possibly terminators.)

Again another update on the Grey Knights, today wasn't anything near as productive as I wanted it to be (damn you Fallout; New Vegas.) So the PAGKs are almost finished, about 1/3 have received the white needed for the OSL effects that will be airbrushed on later, but they all have their scrolls and bone and red areas painted.

(Again just taken on my desk.)

So tomorrow the hour or so finishing up work on these, then do the work needed on the terminators (if I'm in a good mood I might do a tutorial)  and then at the weekend do all the OSL effects. Then it is onto Landraiders, which I have two to paint up.

Also on the Omegon (count as lufgt huron) sculpt

This is a really fun sculpt, being the first time I've been able to sculpt something that looks vaguely like I want it to look...there is still work for improvement, I'm no master of the forge yet http://masteroftheforge.com/ great sight for inspiration for artscale marines.

I also have something in store for when this blog hits 500 page-views, which I will post up on the weekend.

Thanks for looking and feel free to add comments or questions below.

Also I now have skype so if you're considering commissioning me and want a quick convo and I'm online, feel free to add me: starforged.miniatures .