Reinforcements: Sons of Medusa Terminators

I started this squad with a mind toward speeding up my painting methods for my Sons of Medusa.  The majority of the painting went very quickly.  I was bowling through most of the major sections, the armor, the metals, paint chips and the like.  Then things started slowing down rather quickly as I got into the white detailing and freehand work.  I tried to create sharp freehand details that I feel added a lot of character to already striking minis.  In the end, the added time was well worth it.

The armor was my main concern when I went into the project.  I didn't want to spend hours upon hours upon hours just getting the squad painted Scorpion Green.  So to speed it up, I used my airbrush to lay down the base of Scorpion Green.  I use a white undercoat so that the green shows nice and vibrant.  Thraka Green wash was used selectively, applied using a thin brush to the crevices.  It took two coats to get it looking right and because it was done carefully, it made cleaning up the armor much much faster.  I went back over the armor joins etc with Scorpion Green to keep the armor lines sharp.  When I highlight the armor, I use a glazing method that alters the color slightly each pass to give it a gradual change instead of a harsh hard line highlight.  It doesn't take a ton of time, but does require you to play with watering down the paint to get comfortable with it.

Chipping was laid down using the usual method with Catachan Green as the chipped color and Bleached Bone the highlight.  It's pretty easy to let this step get away from you, so I was sure to take some time to look at the model between sections of armor to make sure it wasn't too much.  It's all personal taste of course, but it's important to keep balance in mind.

Metallics were done using washes to vary the colors.  Chainmail was the base, with Mithril Silver added to areas that were to be 'gold'.  Golds were washed with Gryphonne Sepia, steels with Badab Black, and some hammer details were washed with Devlin Mud.

The shields saw a lot of personal attention.  For larger areas of white I built them up from black using my regular white recipe (also used for helmets), while smaller sections were painted with multiple layers of just white to opaque.

In the end, I'm extremely happy with this unit and excited to finally be able to field a squad with this much punch!  I'll hopefully build off of what I've done with these guys and keep the momentum going with the next project for the army! 

Dark Eldar Mandrakes: Updated!

After some feedback, I made a few changes to the Mandrakes.  I lightened the hair at the crown, and added a little gory rust to the blades.

Now on to some Badab Marines!

On The Table: Son of Medusa Terminators

Batch painting my Sons of Medusa Terminators has been a great way to keep from having too much slow down while I paint up the squad, but at the same time it does take a long time to start seeing the finished product.  There are some long steps in this color scheme, lining that battle damage isn't as easy as it is to dab it on with the sponge!

The metallic paints are nearly finished with only a little touch up to the shading on the hammer heads to go.  They followed the same techniques I've used in the past with a Chainmail base, washed, and highlighted.

The white areas are all greyed out, with two in Codex Grey and two in Fortress Grey so far.  I'll likely move on to drybrushing the bases and then start work on the individual shield faces that are still all blacked out at the moment waiting for personalized details for each!

A lot to do still, but I thought I would share in the process!  All told, I'm saving a lot of time with the squad compared to the old way of painting them and I'm looking forward to sharing it in a step by step in the future!  Now, if my Badab War campaign book would only show up...

How To: Painting Dark Eldar Mandrakes

In Part 1 I went through preparation of Dark Eldar Mandrakes and here's the companion to that article that covers a little of my painting thought process and actually getting them painted.

Open Discussion: New Grey Knights

Games-Workshop has a way of polarizing their fans with new releases for the most part.  The new Grey Knights as seen here don't seem to disappoint as a lot of people have mixed feelings about the latest set.  Past the 'thumbs up/thumbs down', there seem to be a lot of folks looking to use them for various projects with some of the bits within the boxed sets being quite cool.

Now that the shock of the new releases is starting to settle, I wonder what peoples thoughts are on the latest Grey Knight models.  How do they stack up to the old metals in your eyes?  Any Grey Knight players (current or new) out there gearing up for a bunch of new units?  How about you conversion types looking at new bits fodder, I'm really interested in hearing what you guys plan to do with some of those fun new pieces.  Is the latest rendition of the army a Go/No-Go in your eyes?

You've got opinions, so lets hear it.  And if you've got a great idea for an Open Discussion topic shoot us an email at ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com, leave us a message on our Facebook fan page, or tweet us @PaintingCorps on Twitter!

On The Table: What Did I Get Myself Into?

What did I get myself into?  I am all sorts of Badab crazy these days.  That's Courbray in the lower right corner there.

Reinforcements: Sons of Medusa Terminator

To give myself a chance to map out how I would approach my Sons of Medusa Terminator squads, I decided that I would paint a single model to completion and draw from him while I worked on the rest of the unit.  The main focus for this model was how well the armor could look without using the PS-8 Tamiya spray I had used on the previous infantry models.  Mapping out of the major areas of the models was the secondary objective with shield approach being a constant tertiary in the back of my mind.

Overall I find the model really holds together well without the spray, and the majority of the scheme could be pulled from various models within the rest of the force.  For the armor, the basic tactical marine scheme was used.  For the hammer, I went with a more broken up metallic like I had used with my Master of the Forge.  The shield was a touch easier to work out as I went with a design from this transfer sheet and just played around a little with the metallic.

You might notice the shield has a smoother highlighting style than the regular flat edge highlighted black I've used in the past on these guys.  I felt it was far more necessary on this model, and will likely be a feature on other terminator models, as they are a much bigger focal point and those rounded shields are all too nice to leave flat black!

I've also started working on adding some fun cog detailing on the left leg guard.  It was a simple and quick detail that really helps with the balance of the model.  I hope to use this on other models as I move forward and will be looking through Iron Hands iconography as well to come up with cool details that will help tie the army to their fluff past.

The armor is really a big coup in painting this army a lot more efficiently.  Where I spent multiple hours just painting the armor, I now can spend almost half that time working on it by airbrushing the Scorpion Green and washing it selectively, then touching up by brush.  With the time saved, I suspect the rest of the terminators will come along nice and quick, save for a few crazy freehand opportunities on those shields!

I can't wait to get to work on the rest of the squad, and with so many Badab armies coming online, it seems like the perfect time to bolster the loyalist forces to help crush the rebels.  There will be no mercy.

Back to Basics: Assembling and Basing Dark Eldar Mandrakes

I've been working with a lot of plastic (and a little bit of resin) lately, so as a change of pace I decided to build and paint a box of Dark Eldar Mandrakes I've been sitting on for a while.  Here's a step-by-step of my process for getting these models on the table.

You Call It: Storm Shield Freehands

With some serious blank real estate on my Sons of Medusa Terminator storm shields, I am opening the project up to the community a little.  I have two shields that I've sanded down that are ripe for some real freehand detailing.  In the image above, courtesy of Little Big Men Studios, are a lot of great options for historic Greek imagery. 

I'm considering at least one of the Medusa heads but I'm still unsure as to which one exactly, as for the second shield, I'm completely at a loss.  So I ask, what would you like to see painted? 

Pick your favorites and leave a comment!  The most persuasive and most popular designs will get painted once I'm at that stage of the painting process!