On The Table: Star Phantoms

What do you do when you don't feel like you've finished a project in a cool 15 years or so? Stomp your way into a full blown army full of throwback and retro models, new school bits and bobs, and a few techniques you haven't touched in just as long of course!

Enter: The Star Phantoms.

On The Table: Raven Guard

 

After finishing the initial set for my Intercessor Kill Team, I decided to start in on the rest of the force and get the other kill teams/options worked up as well as the add ins for my 40k Boarding Action army!

Little did I know just how long that bit would take.

Reinforcements: Raven Guard Assault Intercessor

 

It's been a long time since I was painting models, playing games, and looking deep into the internet for the best techniques for painting and modeling my figures. But here we are. Nearly a decade later I'm right back into the thick of the miniature wargaming hobby.

To start things off I've jumped back in with battle damaged space marines of course.

Reinforcements: Logan Grimnar

Continuing to get myself back into the hobby, I've been working on some commission jobs for a few friends.  To start things off I got cracking on a Logan Grimnar.  

Army Surplus: NOVA 2013 Charity Raffle

As part of their annual charity push, NOVA Open has a three raffles going on that anyone can participate in! 

Reinforcements: Falcon Guard Dante

Falcon Guard Count-As Dante

As a birthday gift to a good friend of mine, I started this model a while back.  Things of course didn't work to plan and I got side tracked for a good 9 months or so with school.  Well, classes are out now (only one more course to go!) and I am trying to get my legs back in the hobby.  It's been a while and most of this model was already finished it just needed some touch up and additional detailing.  Thankfully it wasn't a huge project to finish this guy up and it helped me gain a little of that fine brush control that I let go when I work on canvas paintings.  

It's just nice to be back :)

Space Wolves Rhino

It's been a long, long time since I've had a chance to sit down and paint something for my armies.  Things have been extremely busy for the last nine months and have started to finally calm down for a few weeks.  It won't last of course, but it's nice to finish a new model when I can!

Art: XVIII

XVIII

20"x16"Acrylic on Canvas

Some of you might remember the last space marine painting that I posted a while back.  This painting was started soon after finishing that first piece and was to be in the same vein.  The background went in quickly enough, but with life getting in the way, I couldn't find the time to settle in and work in the marine. 

With a long break through winter, I was able to get back to the easel and broke out the paints again and in a single sitting, I finished the painting off, all while preparing a dinner! 

I'm really quite happy with this piece and feel it as a natural evolution from the first marine.  Future iterations would see much this same sort of evolution and a push toward more dynamic compositions. 

If you're interested in seeing more of my work outside of the hobby, feel free to browse my art website/blog here.  Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy my work!

Reinforcements: Falcon Guard

In an effort to get my painting hands back before I dive into a slightly more involved commission project, I thought I might start out with some simple tactical marines.  The other reason for this squad is that I wasn't aware that my friend and I were going to be swapping gifts and when he told me my gift was being worked on, I had an instant flash of what I should do for a return gift!

Reinforcements: Angels Sanguine

It's been about two weeks since I finished the latest additions to my Angels Sanguine force.  I had been working so feverishly to complete the two squads of Assault Marines before a gaming weekend at a good friends house that I found myself burning out a little from the push.  In the end, I did get them completed before heading out for that weekend and they saw themselves on the table fully painted and ready to rip his army and others to shreds.

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!

Random: 'Overwatch'

A day to myself and I sat down to the easel and finished the marine painting I had been working on.  The piece, now entitled 'Overwatch' is a 24"x18" acrylic on canvas painting.  The final photo above too me a few days to get thanks to the type of acrylic paints I was using, Open Acrylics, but I'm happy to say that it's finished and dry now and I am quite happy with the end results.

I used this piece as a reason to play with color, and saturated colors at that.  The subject being a very basic Space Marine with not much in the way of detailing, it allowed me to explore texture and shape in a way that a super detailed armor wouldn't have.  The background was kept basic and brought together mostly by impressionist styled paint markings.

Placement of the figure helps to bring him forward amongst all of the warm tones in the background.  Not allowing him to be surrounded by the oranges, reds and yellows keeps from having him lost somewhere in the mid-ground and instead forces him to the foreground and into the viewers space.  His sharp finish helps bring him to your attention as well amongst all of the loose brush strokes of the background.

I'm quite happy with the finish on the armor, the mottled texture helps to give the look of a field hardened fighter instead of parade ground highly polished plate.  Using my fingers to help create the effect brought me more into the piece and allowed me to not be as careful and loosened me up to allow the effect to take hold.

The painting is far from perfect, but as an exercise in color and texture, which it was always meant to be, it has succeeded and allowed me to step away from the serious subject matter I've been delving into of late in my other works.

Thanks for looking, and I hope to do more paintings like this as a way to let go and have fun with my learning process!  We'll have to wait and see what comes next!

Reinforcements: Angels Sanguine Assault Marine

To give myself an idea of how the basic troop for my Assault units will look, I took a marine from the unit I've been working on the last few weeks and painted him to complete.  It didn't take much doing as the majority of the work was already complete.  The main things I had to do were gems and detail work.  Metallics were given a touch up and black areas given highlighting. 

The marine follows the majority of the color scheme laid out by the Angels Sanguine Terminators.  But with additions of the yellow which was done through GW Iyaden Darksun followed by a highlight of 50/50 Iyadend Darksun/Ivory and a final Ivory highlight. 

The shoulders were also done to help lay out colors and ideas for the army.  I've gone with Second Company markings for this force, so yellow teardrops on the right shoulder.  The left shoulders will have chapter badges, but because of how odd the placement is for this guy, it was hard to get right, plus, I wasn't really happy with just how it came out, so I will have to continue to work on the approach for the badges in the future. 

The base used rust colored pigments mixed with VMC Matt Varnish to create a crusted and rusted look.  I drybrushed this with GW Boltgun Metal along the edges of the plates.  Mixing in more pigment brings out the matt/powdery look of the pigment while adhering it nicely to the surfaces. 

I will be sure to do a full write up for the color scheme and how I approached everything when I post the reinforcements for the finished squads.  Here's hoping a few tips come out of this force!

Reinforcements: The Sanguinor

Early mornings these last two weeks have found me getting more accomplished.  Completing new Space Wolves in the form of Wolf Scouts last week and a Rune Priest this week was a good break from the black and red of my Angels Sanguine.  This time around, I've found time to finish my Sanguinor that I was lucky enough to win through a random giveaway by Santa Cruz Warhammer a while back.  It's good to finally get this model finished after having him shelved for so long and I hope the paint does the model, and their generosity, justice in the end.

Reinforcements: Rune Priest

Making short work of the detail work that was left on my Rune Priest, I was able to get him finished yesterday.  The majority of my time taken up by working the metallic areas so that they looked appropriately deep and didn't detract from the rest of the model by overwhelming him.  I'm actually quite happy with how this model came out in the end, especially when I was so apprehensive about it when I started this project.  It's been some years since I've worked on an old style terminator model and it's good to know you can still make them look cool after all this time.

The model followed the color scheme I've had laid out for some months now and didn't really diverge too greatly from that.  The biggest hurdle with this model was defining what areas would be gold and what would be silver.  With the Rune detailing taking up so much real estate around the model, I was afraid of them taking the model over and ruining the overall feel.  Originally I had these pegged for gold, but thankfully I started washing all of the other details first and was going to go back in on the runes carefully with Sepia.  But once I had the major gold sections washed, I began to see the runes in a different light.  They had a cool blue hint thanks to all of the Shadow Grey surrounding them and weren't standing out, instead they worked more like a part of the armor and helped to break up the monotony of gold that would have taken things over.  I decided to leave them in Mithril Silver and went back on each with a hit of Badab Black to tone them back a little more.

Water-slide transfers can always be a pain, especially on a rounded surface.  To help things along, I used a military modelling trick of old and painted the shoulder pad with VMC Gloss.  This allows the decal to slide into place easier and helps to blur the edges.  I also gave the transfer a few small slits with a hobby knife before placing it on the pad, which will let the transfer buckle in and out a little in areas that would normally pinch.  I couldn't use the typical Y pattern that a lot of folks talk about, but instead cut where I could that I could easily fill back in should it spread too much.  I was also able to cut it directly on the shoulder at pinching spots, a sharp knife and just enough pressure to cut did the trick.  The gloss coat helped to protect the paint in this maneuver as well, so yet another bonus to going with that step!  Once the transfer was in place I used Micro-Sol, a dissolving solution, on the decal to soften it up and allow it to form better to the shoulder.  When it was dry I used my finger to help stamp down any trouble areas and hit it again with Micro-Sol.  Rinse and repeat as needed and it was finally flat to the shoulder.  A few spots spread from the cuts I made so I went back in with Chaos Black to fill them back in.  A final coat over the entire shoulder pad with VMC Matt Varnish and it was done!

While I was at it with the shoulder Gloss coat, I went ahead and touched the gems with it to give them a little more luster.  It's a small thing but seems to work out nicely.  I tend to varnish my entire model after it's finished with Krylon Matte Finish Spray, but even through that stage the gloss seems to add a touch more to those areas I've done in it.

One the Matt Varnish was dry, I finally finished the models base using my typical snow method.

I have a lot of old models like this just sitting around in cases and in bits boxes.  They never really find the light of day but with this 'test' I might be considering more of them in the future.  With this model I get my Space Wolves army up to around 850 points of terrible battlefield ability.  Some day I'll add some armor and long range to them but for now they're just pretty to look at and easy to kill! 

I hope everyone enjoys this bouncing around from project to project as much as I do.  It's really reinvigorated me about painting things and allows me to have more fun than just trudging along through a single army build hating the grind.  I highly suggest everyone out there have at least one or two side projects to work on at any given time!

On The Table: Old School Rune Priest

Well, affirming that I can never stay with a single project any longer, I've dug in on a new model that just happened to catch my eye a few days ago.  This Space Wolves Rune Priest is from the way back days of 2nd Edition and comes from the collection of old wolf models my friend handed over to me when he stepped away from the hobby. 

There was just something about seeing it in my cases after getting the Wolf Scouts finished up that made me want to give him some table time.  I rummaged through my bases and found a 40mm that I had in resin, unfortunately the base was pre-modeled with details I couldn't use, so I just sanded the top down and pinned the chunk of metal that is an old school terminator to it! 

The paint is following my basic scheme for them so far, with the runes being the only real hurdle of thought.  I had considered going with gold for them, but after getting the other gold sections down, and seeing the cool blue/silver that has come from the Mithril Silver being surrounded by all of that Shadow Grey tone, I'm quite happy with how it's looking.  I did give them a quick hit of Badab Black to give them a little additional depth though. 

Still a bunch of detail work and a little more washing and metallics work to go.  I'm expecting to have this guy finished in short order, so stay tuned for more random modeling and painting projects and the final photos of this and other models as I get them done.  Not to mention the tips and ideas that come from them!

On The Table: Sanguinor and Friends

I've decided that fighting my hobby ADD by forcing myself to focus on a single model, or project no longer suits me.  The butterfly that is my wargaming side is never completely settled on any one army and I always long to just do a little work here and there on everything else, be it modeling or painting or a random terrain project.  There are so many great models in my collection that I just can't help but let whatever ends up catching my eye in the hobby room make it to the table for at least a little work. 

Reinforcements: Wolf Scouts

Never content with a single project, I found myself drawn from my Angels Sanguine to my Space Wolves once again.  This time around, the scouts found the painting table.  Some of you might remember I actually started these guys some time ago, only getting so far as their armor and cloth, but as always, I quickly became bored and moved on, leaving these guys to sit in the case waiting their turn.  But thanks to some burn out on my latest army project, I caught a glimpse of these guys and decided to give them a go to help break up the monotony. 

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!

On The Table: Angels Sanguine

As I mentioned in last weeks tip on painting yellow, I've gotten a good amount of work done on my Angels Sanguine Assault Squads over the past week.  The last time I posted about them, they were just bases, now they've begun to come into their own with their armored bits all finished, and details started.  But as everyone knows, this is when things start to get bogged down in batch painting.  Progress will be much slower to come by and that sense of accomplishment after finishing one models stage is quickly diminished when you look up and see another 7 or 8 models staring back at you.