Creative January Warhammer 40,000 Commander's Edition Space Marine Force

I managed to get my project in just under the wire for Creative January.  This is the Space Marine Force painted as Dark Angels using some pretty quick techniques and oil washes.  I'm really happy with the way they turned out.  I was going for an advanced tabletop quality for this force and I think I managed that.  The Ravenwing Outriders have the simplest paint jobs but I had to fully assemble them before painting and the legs of the bikers were molded into the piece with the exhaust so it was harder to get to the seat of the bikes.  They remained black which worked out okay.  

I was most happy with the way the bases blend into the red clay side of the battle board.  I think the color also provides a nice contrast to the Space Marines armor. 

  

The commander was definitely the hardest miniature in the box.  It took me nearly a full weekend to paint him.  My wife has been working on the Necrons that came in the boxed set so we will hopefully be able to play out the starter Scenarios soon.  

I managed to snag a box of Dark Vengeance from my FLGS for about $100.00 so I'm going to have several more Dank Angels to paint up soon.  The nice thing about this set is that all of the Dark Angels have their iconography molded on so I won't have to deal with fiddly decals.  

 When I painted the Outriders I also painted this old Chaplain.  I think he is from 2nd Edition.  He's metal and has a small base but I'm going to use him with my Scout detachment so he should work well for them.  I've found several other sets of Space Marines but my son is also working on his own chapter so we are splitting them between our forces.  I have "Kill Team" on order which I'm actually looking forward to playing than the full game.  I have a lot of 40K miniatures from the past from several different factions so I should be able to make several small forces.   

Warhammer 40K Dark Angels first squad finished for Creative January

 

I finished the Assault Intercessor Squad from the Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition Command Edition boxed set.  These guys were a lot of fun to paint.  I finished them off using some oil washing techniques.  Oil washes are a lot easier to use than most people would think.  They are easier to use than acrylic ink based washes in fact as long as you take a bit of care with your work space and gentle enough with your application.  I may make a post showing the difference between the two sometime soon.  

I had intended to show the rest of my process in painting these as I did in my first post but I've got a lot of miniatures to paint and not a lot of time to edit the images required for a step by step.  I didn't really use any exotic techniques.  Mostly standard dry brushing and highlighting.  I did use makeup brushes for the drybrushing which I have just started using.  I would highly recommend those for drybrushing and I'm looking to get a larger and better quality set soon.  

Next up on my paint table is this Primaris Captain from the boxed set and an older Dreadnaught I've had laying around for a while.  

 

Creative January Project Dark Angels Space Marines Assault Intercessor Squad

So a largely photography based creative group I belong to on Facebook just issued a Creative January challenge so as a non conformist I am submitting some Space Marines.  I've just picked up the Commander's Edition for Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition and these miniatures were included in the Space Marine Force.

Assembly was interesting.  I have not played 40K in several editions although I did have a few 8th edition miniatures.  I'm not a big fan of the push to fit assembly but these went together pretty well with only a few mold lines to clean up.  I like the size and dynamic posing of the newer Games Workshop models but I miss the utility of the older multi part kits.  

First base coat was in black automotive primer.  For rattle can primers I prefer automotive primers because they tend to be pretty thin and therefore don't obscure detail too much.  I make a noob mistake and started painting a bit too far from these minis so they got a tad bit grainy from some of the paint droplets drying before the hit the mini but I'm just gonna press on and work with it.  

Next I grabbed some kind of random dark green and sprayed from above and at a 45 degree angle which left black in the lower recesses and undersides of the figures giving me some quick and dirty shading.  I've seen this technique used but outside of a few terrain projects I have not used it myself.  

Next I did some highlighting using a makeup brush for my drybrushing.  I used a pretty cheap brush but it worked pretty well.  These are really bright for my intended Dark Angels color scheme but I'm going to used some oil washes to finish these models so that will darken them considerably.  I know I use craft paints.  Deal.... 

Because these models are so dynamic I decided to pull some of the parts off to get at the miniature better.  Unfortunately during assembly I had decided against this so I glued a couple of the looser bits in place.  I almost always paint fully assembled miniatures but I think one models like these I may start taking advantage of this newer assembly method.  

Whenever possible I like to paint in one setting or I try to pick projects that I can finish in one day but I've just started a new supervisory position at work and I'm only getting about an hour or so at the paint table before fatigue sets in.  I plan to make more progress over the weekend.  I will almost surely have these done but Sunday night.  

 

Tattered Angles French Roast Color Wash Paint Vs Games Workshop Agrax Earthshade

 I was in Hobby Lobby a few days ago and I saw this "Tattered Angles" color wash tint and I wondered if it would hold up against Games Workshop shades. 

 I selected the "French Roast" color because I wanted to see how it looked against Agrax Earthshade and it looked like the darkest brown wash available in the line.  The "Tattered Angles" line comes in 59ml bottles for $2.99 U.S. vs the 24ml Games Workshop bottles that I payed $7.50 U.S. for at my FLGS.  Now the "Tattered Angles" web site had these colors listed for $4.99 and the Games Workshop site had their shades listed at $7.80 but the Tattered Angles is a clear winner on price for volume. 
   

I painted up a couple of zombie miniatures with as close to an identical paint job as possible.  I used cheapo Delta Ceramcot for the base.  The only difference between the two zombies is their hair color.

I applied both washes liberally straight from the bottle with no dilution.  I could tell at this point that the French Roast was going to be a darker and cooler wash than the Agrax Earthshade.  Tattered Angles do have a "Latte" color that I may try to see if it matches Agrax Earthshade better.  Both washes seemed to behave in a similar fashion flowing nicely into the recessed areas without tide marks or over staining the highlights. 

Both washes dried as I expected.  The Agrax Earthshade was warmer and lighter in tone.  The French Roast was cooler and a little darker.  I think both shades preformed nicely.  I have a slight preference for the Agrax Earthshade on this model but I'm not put off by the French Roast now that I know how to handle it.  I think it will make a particularly nice armor wash.  For the price difference I really like the Tattered Angles wash.  It did seem to dry a little flatter than the Games Workshop shade which some people may or may not like.  If I was needed a dark wash for a big project I would seriously consider it.  

Painting my Warlord English Civil War Plastic Musketeers

I purchased a Pike and Shotte Infantry Regiment plastic boxed set of miniatures from Warlord Games a few years ago with the intent to use them for a swashbuckling style D&D campaign but that campaign died after a few sessions and I shelved the minis among my vast hoard of unpainted minis.  Recently my son has decided to get into wargaming but he is primarily interested in historic.  I have an 11 year old "Old Man" wargamer it would seem.  So I dug these out and we put some together. 

The kit is pretty nice but it does have a few flaws.  There are exactly enough heads for the miniatures in the kit.  Not one extra.  Don't drop one.  There also aren't many arm/weapon options.  You have to figure out which ones work with which bodies and not mess that up and there aren't a lot of options or left overs when you are done.  Also the pikes on the pikemen break if you breathe too heavily.

I primed these with Dupl-Color Sandable Automotive Primer in black because it's my favorite primer for metal an hard plastic minis.  I then drybrushed them with burnt umber.  I've found as I get older that I can't see details very well when I black prime so this helps me pick up those details.  Also I left some of the areas with just the burnt umber layer.  Mostly the boots and leather gear.  The brown also set a nice tone to paint over for these models.

When I painted their coats I used three different colors of red.  One a darker cool red, one a cool brighter red, and one a warmer bright red.  This works well for figures of these era because troop uniforms carried more than in later periods.  

Here you can see more of the details with their base coats painted in.  You can see how leaving the burnt umber saved me time on some of the details.  I washed the flesh with Games Workshop Reikland Fleshshade at this point.  No highlights at all because these are rank and file minis.  

I used Games Workshop Agrax Earthshade over the rest of the figure trying to avoid the flesh areas.  This tied the colors together and provided subtle gradations.  

I did some basic highlighting on the coats, pants, and hats but allowed the shading the provide gradation for the rest of the figures.  I really like a more basic paint job for rank and file historic miniatures.  Not only do you usually have to paint more of them but they just tent to look a little nicer on the tabletop with a basic paint job.  Notice I didn't paint the eyes in for the same reasons.  

 

My new favorite bases!

Recently I've started basing most of my miniatures on wooden bases instead of metal or plastic ones.  Wooden bases take glue and paint very well so my bases don't get chipped.  I've had a lot of problems in the past with the edges of my bases chipping even when I sand the sides to get the metal and plastic bases more grit.  I've also had sand and even flocking and static grass chip off the tops of minis from time to time when the glue chips off the plastic bases. 

For standard 28mm minis I've been buying these 1 inch wooden bases from Woodpile at Hobby Lobby.  They come 12 to a package for $2.00 a package.  I really like the finished rounded edges.  They are about as thick as a Games Workshop round base although not quite so these Reaper Miniatures figures don't gain too much height on them compared to the other miniatures in my collection.  The wood grain edges even look kind of nice.  I like having some texture to the sides of my bases but I usually don't like to have a lot of texture overlapping onto the sides so these give me a nice amount of texture which as I said earlier also helps hold the paint.  I've found them to be far superior in every way to plastic bases.  

Miniature Update 11-30-17

 Just posting some miniatures I've painted lately.  I'm trying to get some monsters painted up for my D&D games.  First up is this Reaper Bones large fire elemental.

A Reaper; Rust Monster, Clay Golem, and Efreet as well as a Dungeon Delvers Basalisk.  I'm hoping to get more done soon. 

Random Miniature Update 11-9-17

I painted this Reaper Bones Griffin based on a Bateleur eagle.  

These Reaper Crusaders will be "The Drowned Templars" in an upcoming game.

Three Reaper Orcs I painted up to represent Half Ogres.

I painted this Reaper dark elf sorceress as a Drow.  She will be "The Twilight Queen" in my campaign.

Random miniature update.

I haven't really posted any painted miniatures lately so I thought I would post the last few miniature painting projects I have worked on. 

The three barrels are from WizKids new unpainted plastic miniature line.  They were very cheap and very nice to paint. 

The archer is from Reaper.  One of their army packs that have been around forever.  This is for my son's very first D&D game.  His character has leather armor so I painted the scale armor as leather scale.  I think it works pretty well.  He's got a bow, arrows, sword, and a shield.  The shield is an old GW shield from my bits box.  My son's favorite color is red so that is why he has a bright red tunic. 

The rat swarms are from Reaper bones line.  I basically dry brushed the entire swarm and base grey then used glazes of different colors to paint the rats.  I added flesh tone to the tails and a dot to their noses.  I think they turned out pretty nice.  I just need more of them. 

Draconis Combine: The Legion of Vega (Battletech Factions Project)

We've started a project of building faction specific units for Battletech.  We want to start with three companies (12 mechs) for each of the major factions of the Inner Sphere.  Our plan is to make one elite company, one regular company, and one generic camouflage company.  We've started with the Draconis Combine (House Kurita) and so far we have finished a company of "The Legion of Vega".  My wife chose that company because of it's interesting background.  We are currently playing a campaign based in Port Krin on Antallos.  My wife painted this company using mechs from the Battletech Introductory boxed set.  The new version of the boxed set came with nicer figures than the first printing.  They are very clean and sharp in their detail.

I've nearly finished painting a Sword of Light company and I also have about half a company of Draconis mechs painted in an Urban camo.  I'm also hoping to have an armored company for each faction making a reinforced Battalion for each faction.

After we finish the Draconis units we are moving along to the Federated Suns (House Davion).  I already have a company of mechs started for that faction and another company on the paint table.

Eventually I would like to do major Periphery states, invasion era Clans, Mercenaries and Pirates.  In fact I have several small generic Pirate bands in the works.        

6 Month Lead Mountain Challenge!

Okay I've joined a 6 month lead mountain painting challenge to help me clear some of my project backlog.  You can find the rules here:  http://wastelandminiatures.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-6-month-mountain-reduction-painting.html

They have a facebook page if you are interested in joining here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ConqueringTheLeadMountain/

This one will be kind of difficult for me because I was planning on starting two new forces and I won't be able to buy those figs during the challenge.  I'll just have to do some heavy hint dropping around my birthday and the holidays.  :)