Reinforcements: Sons of Medusa Servitor

Over the weekend I was able to get out to a good friends place and get some game time in.  While I was there I was letting some new gamers play using my Sons of Medusa and Angels Sanguine.  This meant a little time sitting down to figure out some quick army lists for people to use.  The Sons of Medusa being the most basic of the armies I have I was making good use of them and digging around for extra points at times when I couldn't quite make the point max dead on.  Messing with the Master of the Forge options I started toying with the idea of taking some servitors to help flesh out the point totals from time to time, add a wound, and maybe a little more combat effectiveness to a unit that tends to sit back a lot. 

With the thought sparked I came home from my the weekend away and got to work on cleaning, modeling and priming two servitors.  The first of which you see above in his freshly finished paint, the second to come soon after. 

Paint was fairly simple and straight forward for all but the skin tone.  For the skin I painted the areas with VMC Cork Brown, washed with Gryphonne Sepia, touched up high points with Cork Brown, then highlighted with 50/50 Cork Brown/VMC Ivory, and a few touches of what looked to be a 25/75 of Cork Brown/Ivory.  I then washed this back down with Devlan Mud and touched the highlights up a little with the 25/75 here and there. 

Metals followed my typical metallic wash method with Chainmail as the base color, washed with Badab Black, touched up with Chainmail and a few areas given a wash of either Devlan Mud or Gryphonne Sepia. 

Red was done with a Mechrite Red base color, washed with Gryphonne Sepia, touched up with Mechrite Red, highlight of Blood Red, and a final highlight of Blazing Orange.  I washed this again with Devlan Mud and did a touch up highlight of Blazing Orange. 

Black areas are Chaos Black line highlighted with Codex Grey and given a final line highlight of Fortress Grey leaving some of the Codex Grey showing. 

The base was painted Bestial Brown and dry brushed with Bleached Bone before painting the rim with Chaos Black.  Static Grass was added in typical fashion using Gale Force 9 Arid Grass. 

After a Matt Varnish spray, I found he was still very shiny from the wash layers and hit many of the non-metallic areas with a brush on VMC Matt Varnish to kill it off. 

The Sons of Medusa are bolstered once more with a new unit that is in keeping with their background and one that I hope will be useful in filling out an army lists from time to time!  I have more of these guys to do still but 1/4 in a single night is the kind of progress I can handle!

Friday Quick Tip: Sponge Weathering (Video)

Today I'm bringing you what I hope will become the first in many of the tips we've run here on The Painting Corps in video format.  There is a lot that might be getting lost in the translation from my table top, to text, to your table top.  So in an effort to help those who might be skittish about trying out some of the more fun techniques we've covered on TPC, I'll be going back and showing things as I do them.  The end result will hopefully be a more robust tip catalog and a more useful one!




It's not much to look at, no flashy intros and outros, but for now it'll do! I might go back in and add some things to the video to help with the breakdowns, but it gets the information out there, shows you how to do it, and gets you painting faster!

If you are newer to TPC and looking for some additional write up info on this method and a bunch of other weathering techniques that might help, be sure to check out the weathering tag.  If it's more videos you're in the market for, you can check out TPC's youtube page for a few more offerings we've posted in the past.  There isn't a lot up yet, but here's to the future!

Thanks for watching, and if you have something you would love to see covered here on TPC, leave us a comment, or shoot us an email at ThePaintingCorps@gmail.com!

Showcase: Sons of Medusa

With a trip up to the Games-Workshop Bunker in Bowie, MD the other day, I took a few minutes off to my own on an empty table toward the back to get a few shots of my Sons of Medusa as they stand today.  The army has come a long way since my first steps into creating a hardly known army from the depths of the Rogue Trader days.  Now, it's become a sort of legacy project that will see me into many more years of modeling and painting. 

Reinforcements: Assault Terminator

To help me get things mocked out for my squad of assault terminators, I decided to go ahead with a single model from the group and paint him up fully.  The big reason was to test the idea I had for my lightning claws.  I wanted them to fit the rest of the close combat weapons in the army but keep them interesting enough to catch your eye. 

In the end, I went with my typical washing method for metallics using Badab Black over a chainmail base color and touched them back up to add depth with another hit of chainmail.  Then I went back in with Devlin Mud along the knuckles and attachment points for the claws.  I went back into the blades and added thinned glazes of Chaos Black to add a shade along the blade, fading it out to the points.  I took chainmail and added scratches to the blades and other spots on the claws. 

Thanks to the shoulder ring, I had to do the chapter badge 100% freehand.  Not exactly fun times, but it's always a good exercise!  And speaking of the trophy ring, I'm extremely satisfied with how it came out!

Now it's on to the next four models from the squad that I have plans to get done all at once via batch painting.  Stay tuned, as I hope to them done sometime in the next week! 

On The Table: Assault Terminators WIP

Things with my latest batch of terminators have taken a bit of a slow start.  The modeling went extremely quick and well paced, but once they were primed and ready to catch paint, things began to slow down to a near halt.  All of this was of course around the same time I picked up a new Xbox game.  I'm not proud of it, but I've been spending far too much time digging in with Halo: Reach this last week!  It's been some time since I really got into a video game, so it's only natural I'd take a little more time to really give one a full run.

The terminators did however catch some work over the last few days.  Not a lot, and not even a lot of time spent, but the slow plod of progress makes finding traction easier.  The airbrushing happened earlier last week, along with a few extra marines I had in white primer.  I always make sure to have something 'extra' when I go to airbrush, just in case I mix too much paint.  It's always nice to get a few more models started, even if they won't find paint table time for a while, they'll go that much faster when they do.

Yesterday, I was out at the Olney, MD Games-Workshop to kill some time and talk shop, and brought along my stuff to see if I could get anything done.  Thankfully, I was able to actually get work going on one of the terminators.  I decided to move ahead with a single model to help me map out the lightning claws for the rest of the squad.  The majority of the armor is done, and next up will be metallic areas, then details.  I hope to get this one finished soon and then quickly get to work on the rest of the squad.

So stay with me through my divided attention!  I'm wrestling with a few ideas to get things back on track here on TPC and hope to get back to putting up more tips and ideas. 

On The Table: Terminators and More

Just a small update on the Terminators from earlier this week today. Not a ton of work done, but I think showing additional WIP shots helps keep me motivated as well as show how the added details turned out in terms of smoothness and integration to the models.  Plus I get to share a 'little' hint at what the next project will be once these bad boys are off the hobby table.

On The Table: SoM Assault Terminators

I love to add high value units to my armies.  One of the most expensive of those for the Space Marines is a full squad of terminators, and thankfully, they also just happen to be one of the most effective.  I just recently finished up a good amount of points in my Thunderhammer squad and my Lysander count as, Proetus.  To give myself some additional options, not to mention another squad, I'm going forward with a squad of lightning claw termies.  And thanks to all of the work I did on Proetus, I'm finding myself working on little additional details to each model.

Reinforcements: Proetus 'The Three Headed'

With classes concluding just over a week ago, I've finally found time again to sit back down to the hobby table and get back to work on some things.  First up on that list is my Lysander Count-As, Captain Proetus.  The model was so far along that it was killing me to let him sit unfinished on my shelf as I had to work on various school projects for hours on end!  To get back to him and finally get the detail work completed was a great way to get right back into the thick of things.

The shield was of particular concern as I was worried the idea in my head wouldn't transfer to the miniature.  Thankfully, after some concept work in both Photoshop, and with pencil and paper, I was able to simplify the idea to make it work.  The cog detail went down first and the three headed snake or hydra was painted in.  I used Fortress Grey to lay out the snake lines first and then went in with Skull White to finish them off, which included adding the belly details without the guide of grey.  I cleaned the edges up a little here and there with black to make it look a touch crisper.

The razorwire on the base is courtesy of Secret Weapon Miniatures Brass Etched Razorwire.  It was super easy to work with and added a great touch of story to the model.  The razorewire was painted Vermin Brown then painted with a stipple of Blazing Orange.  

The model followed most of the same approach laid out by my Sons of Medusa terminators, and will be what I use for future additions to the force.

For those that might have missed the WIP:  WIP 1, WIP 2, WIP 3

As Captain Proetus takes his place at the fore of the Sons of Medusa, I am already looking into what my next project will be!  I'm always open to suggestions!  It's good to be back with something to show!

On The Table: Proetus WIP/Terrain

He's not much to look at right now, but I thought I would share him as a way to keep myself interested in getting him finished!  A LOT to finish on this guy still but I think once the white is finished, and I get the basing brown I'll feel much better about him.  There's always a point when I'm painting an elaborate model like this that I start to get fed up with the slow progress or things begin to look like they aren't coming together.  Usually it's around the 40-50% finished mark and I take an extended break, only to come back a week or two later and finish the model up in a matter of hours!

On The Table: Brother Captain Proetus

I shared the preliminary WIP of Proetus, my Lysander count as, earlier on TPC along with some other new Sons of Medusa units.  Since that post, I've been able to get some additional work done and got the trades in that I was waiting on for the proper wargear!  The result, a strong and dynamic feeling model ready for paint!

As you can see I changed up his chest shield for a smaller, sculpted one.  The new shield just works better in every way.  It's more functional, better looking, with a better surface for freehand.

On The Table: New Sons of Medusa

After my Sons of Medusa Terminators were finished, I knew I couldn't just stop there.  Things immediately started picking up in my head and I began making trades and purchases that would create the variation and new look that my force needed.  Those moves led me to collecting this group of bits that as of Friday I began building the troops you see above!

Much of what I'm after is wargear variation as I've shown with my last tactical troop.  The next step is to create another full tactical squad/devastator squad out of those new models to help bulk my force up even further and create more opportunities to try different strategies on the battlefield. 

One thing I will definitely need down the stretch is more transport ability.  To start me off I've re-purposed a Razorback that was originally meant for my Grey Death Marines.  I owe this new Command Razorback design to Imperial Armour 10 and the absolutely fantastic work the Forge World team did creating the background and imagery for the Sons of Medusa.  This stripe was done using blue masking tape carefully placed and airbrushed on.  The other side has a similar stripe.  The black is a throwback to the Sons Iron Hands days prior to the Schism.  The black will be brought up a little more grey and the green will be toned appropriately.

The big project right now though is this beastly character.  My 'Not'-Lysander conversion based on Commander Culln from Forge World.  The model is still waiting for more bits to arrive but so far he's come together quite nicely.  I'm looking forward to having him finished and ready for paint.  I'm sure he's got a lot more work to go until then though!

Well there you have it!  That's what I've been up to this weekend!  I'd love to heard your C&C on the lot of the group so far!  I've been splitting my time between them all just working on whatever catches me from one second to the next! 

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! 

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...

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.

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! 

On The Table: Sons of Medusa Terminators

I've been wanting a set of terminators since I started my Sons of Medusa.  A big bad block of awesome that could put major problems into an opponents battle plans and eat up a ton of points at the same time.  I even went ahead and ordered a set of Black Lotus Tribe shields from Maxmini.eu near as soon as I started the army.  I had wanted to use round shields in place of the normal terminator storm shields.  But when I got a set of terminators, they were caked with paint already and when I went to spray them once more, the spray fuzzed up on me.  My attempts to remove the paint were futile at best and I decided they were too far gone and relegated them to the bits bin. 

Over the last week I decided to try and salvage them once and for all.  A few good scrapes with the hobby knife and some sandable auto primer later and I was pleasantly surprised that they came out the other side looking a touch alright!  There are a few pits here and there from uneven paint but nothing that won't cover up nicely with a little of my paint weathering! 

I'm trying another method for painting my Sons as well.  Instead of going with the PS-8 Tamiya Spray I've used before I'm going to be using airbrushed Scorpion Green.  The wash I use will still be Thraka Green to add some depth, but I'll be using the wash much more sparingly.  The rest will likely be near the same as everything I've painted for the force so far with maybe a few tweaks here and there.  The shields will likely have a few areas of freehand, to include an homage to the original Sons of Medusa chapter emblem. 

I've also got another set of 5 terminators that I'll be loading out with lightning claws.  I was able to finally snag a set of shoulders for the squad after having them in limbo for going on two years now!  I picked up the squad as a trade at a bits night but they were sans-shoulders, I had been meaning to get a set online but just never got around to it.  The other day, I asked around and was able to get a set once and for all from a DakkaDakka user, AgeofEgos.  A big thanks to him for helping me finally get this project going! 

I have a lot of painting to do yet, as well as a good amount of modeling.  There is even another land raider to put together still to cart the second squad around in!  It's a long way off from completed, but I'm dying to get started!

Reinforcements: Sons of Medusa Marine

Getting a new model for my Sons of Medusa army finished is always a great feeling.  This is the army that I fell in love with from the start.  It's a hard color scheme, Scorpion Green and White aren't exactly colors that beginners should handle very much let alone build an army on!  Now with the release of Imperial Armor 10, they have a developed background and a brand new allure.

This guy was just one of a few wargear options I had laying around that didn't make it into the final army list.  Now that I'm back at the boys in green, I'm digging through my collection of bits and models looking to build an entire squad around him.  I've been lucky enough to find enough to put just that many models together, and am considering picking up the collectors range Iron Hands Tactical Squad from GW for a ton of great bionic bits and bobs that would do wonders for the look of the army.  Oh, and that special character from IA10 might be in the making if I can come up with the right bits!

All in all I'm extremely happy with how this guy came out, and while I was at it I went ahead and painted the chapter badge on the tactical multi-melta marine I was using as a rough guide.  I still have to go through and do that for most of the rest of the army, but with how easy it went on with these two I don't suspect it would take more than a day to get done, now if I could just find the time!

I love the Badab War, if you're working on an army from the conflict or have one built, I want to see them!  Share a link in the comments!

On The Table: Missle Launcher

One of my favorite weapons in Warhammer 40,000 is the missile launcher.  It's versatility and cheap cost make it one of the best bang for your buck weapons, that I felt odd not having any in my Sons of Medusa army!  When I originally set the force up, it was with the intent of facing other heavily armored and armed Space Marine armies in the Badab War, and thus I went with a lot of melta weaponry to counter those threats for next to nothing in points.

Now that I've come back around to the Sons, I decided it was time to paint up a few of the wargear options I had laying around to give me a little more flexibility in what I take from conflict to conflict.  The majority of the options I have are from the Assault on Black Reach boxed set that weren't a part of the original set of squads.

I had almost forgotten just how long it takes to paint models for this army.  GW's Scorpion Green is definitely not a color for the feint of heart.  It takes a lot of dedication to paint even a single model in this color, and that's just getting the base color down.  I'm also hard up for some more paint at the moment as well, as my black is completely watered down now, and I'm out of Bestial Brown and Snakebite Leather!  I'm pretty certain there are other colors I've gone through as well that I'll need.  Here's to a trip by the shop for some more paint and hopefully I can resist picking up $150+ worth of Badab War books...

I'm all about the Badab War right now.  I've even gone back through the backlog and added a Badab War tag to all appropriate entries!  I hope to add a little more on the conflict and even feature more of my army here on The Painting Corps as well.  Anyone got a Badab army they want to share?  Leave a comment!

On The Table: New Sons

The winds of inspiration are fickle at best.  I never know what is going to catch my eye and just what project I'll be working on from week to week.  As many of you might have come to expect from my work here on TPC, I'm in the midst of a project shift from the Space Wolves to my Sons of Medusa. 

I've had these models floating around almost since I started working on the army.  The majority are just wargear options for squads, but then there are the Terminators that are going to be an entirely new and important unit for my force.  Some of the models are ready for paint, where some need additional modeling.  The Terminators are missing shoulder pads that I need to order still.

In the background you can see another big piece to the battle puzzle in the form of a Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer.  I'm really excited to get that kit together, and will likely magnetize the weaponry on it as well.  I'm sure it will be some time before getting all of this finished, but we'll see what I end up working on! 

What would you like to see from this lot?  I'm always open to suggestions and like to work on things that others like to see.

Breakdown: Sons of Medusa Desert Support

 
I've been meaning to do some "How To"'s on the Sons of Medusa for a long time now, but unfortunately, I just haven't gotten around to it.  I've had a lot of folks ask how I paint them over the last year or so and I thought I would take some time to at least put the colors down in one place for them.