Reinforcements Arrive!

It's been a busy few weeks, and I didn't have much time for the hobby until the week just gone, but I finally have some more Guardsmen painted! You might notice I've changed the base rims to be Calthan Brown (I had originally painted Squad 812 with Scorched Brown rims) for a bit of contrast - my army will all be like that.

I also decided to borrow Admiral Drax's idea for unit identification markings on the rear of the bases. All the troops have squad markings on their shoulderpads, but with the weathering I do that's not always easy to see. Hopefully the markings on the base make organising my troops a bit easier!

These changes have also been made to Squad 812 - apart from that, they're painted in pretty much the same way. I tried painting a darker complexion on a couple of troops, using a paint scheme I found here. I modified it slightly, so it ended up being:

1. Chaos Black basecoat.
2. Scorched Brown/Chaos Black 50:50 for the next layer.
3. Scorched Brown next.
4. Scorched Brown/Graveyard Earth in a 50:50 mix.
5. Graveyard Earth.

I didn't highlight any more as it started to get too light. Let me know what you think!

I'm on a bit of a roll now, so hopefully I'll start cranking through some more stuff soon!

Grenade Launcher Guardsman

Just a quick update - I've been pretty busy lately and haven't had a lot of time for updating my blog, but rest assured I'm still cruising along with my army!

I have a 1,200 pt tournament coming up, and was 1 Grenade Launcher short of having the infantry component built. (Pictures of the rest will be up in the next few weeks!). There's only so much one can do with the single set of GL arms that come with the Cadian Troops box, and I didn't want all 3 of my GL-wielding troops looking the same. Here's what I came up with:

To make him, I grabbed the Cadian Command Squad box, with a GL from the Catachan Command Squad box (which doesn't have a hand attached to the trigger). I added the handle from a section of plasticard rod which had rings carved out of it, which hopefully looks close enough to the 'real' handles.

Finally, I noticed that the helmet-holding arm was much skinnier than the standard Cadian arms, and it had a cuff on it which the standard troops don't possess. To fix it, I used some Green Stuff to bulk out the inside of the arm, and carved the end of the sleeve down to match the standard arms.

Paint will be applied soon! As always, thanks for looking and feel free to leave comments!

Lt. Lokk's Lads

Well, they may not end up being called that, but a little bit of alliteration never goes astray, and I didn't think Brigadier Bob's Buddies sounded quite right...

Anyway, I've been working away on my first veteran squad. They're led by a Sgt. Bastonne counts-as, with carapace armour and 3 meltaguns. It's a hefty lot of points, but they'll get a Chimera eventually so hopefully I can deliver them to a target, destroy it with meltas, and still survive a round of shooting with their 4+ save. I took Bastonne mainly for his ability to give orders and regroup regardless of restrictions, as this squad might end up moving out of orders range from my command squads in order to engage targets.

For the most part, the models were made using pieces from the Cadian, Catachan, Space Marine Scouts and Tau Fire Warrior sprues with a few other bits and pieces thrown in. I was aiming for a mix of parts to personalise each trooper, but with enough similarities to tie the squad together.

So here's the main event. What you've all been waiting for... *cue drum roll*...

Pictures!

Firstly, here's the squad as a whole:

The armour was done by taking Tau Fire Warrior legs, cutting of the feet and replacing with Cadian boots, and then filling in the gaps with Green Stuff. Some poses require more work than others, but I think it came out OK. The heads are from Pig Iron Productions.


Now a few pictures of the individual models and some notes on the conversions:

First up we have the Bastonne counts-as. He has a hellpistol, so I cut down a lasgun and tried to copy the hellpistols from the Kasrkin models. I'm actually pretty proud of the job I did (if I may say so myself) and I don't think you'd be able to tell the difference once it's painted. The backpack was a cut down vox-caster, the power sword converted from the Cadian Command Squad and the chainsword arm from the Troops box, and the hoses for the pistol simply electrical wire. The black bands were heat-shrink pipe cut down to size. You can find this stuff at electronics stores, and you put it over what you want, then heat it with a hair dryer (there is a proper tool for it, but anything that blows hot air will work) and it shrinks down.

Now I know you all think I'm amazing and get everything perfect the first time around (or at least, I like to tell myself that you think so) but here's the previous iteration of the sergeant:

You'll see the hoses were originally connected to the side of the backpack which made them look way too long and out of place. I think the new version looks a lot more streamlined.

This was the first veteran I did. He has a Forgeworld Resin Backpack, Space Wolves knife and some Space Marine Scout belt accessories. Some minor green-stuffing and I came up with the above.

This guy is one of my favourites. He has a Space Marine scanner for something different, and the armour plate he is resting on was just some platicard, melted with a lighter to look battle-damaged (kids and accident-prone people, make sure there's an adult around!) and some rivets added from chopped up styrene rod. The meltagun nozzle is some styrene pipe, because when I was drilling out the barrel the bit snapped off and I had to destroy the original gun to get it out. Lesson learned...

This guy was just for a bit of fun. He's the token 'crazy guy in the squad of battle-hardened troops'. You know the one...

Anyway, I hope you like them - I certainly enjoyed converting them up! As always, thanks for looking and watch this space!

Painting a Guardsman, the Frag_Dad Way - Part II

Welcome back! (I'm hoping at least SOMEONE is reading this...) Today I'll walk you through the steps to finish off the Guardsman we started here. If it's been a while, I'd suggest you go back and read the General Tips I gave in Part I. At the very least, remember to keep thinning your paints!

The following steps should achieve:

We've basically finished the armour, flesh and fatigues, so let's do the final touches to finish our Guardsman! I think these bits are just as important as the rest of the model - no matter how well you've painted his armour, flesh etc., if you've neglected the details it really shows. When I first started painting I'd do most of the model but not be all that happy with it, but once I started finishing off the details it really pulled the paint job together and looked much better! So let's pick up where we left off:

24. We'll start with the chin strap - paint the lower parts it with Bleached Bone. (No picture).

25. Wash this with Devlan Mud.

26. On to the belt accessories. Paint the grenades and canteen with Gnarloc Green.

27. Wash the grenades with Badab Black, and the canteen with a heavy wash of Devlan Mud.

28. Once dry, highlight the raised areas of the grenades with Gnarloc Green, and do a 'rough' highlight of Gnarloc Green around the canteen. I say rough because I don't want it to look to clean and pristine - it gets used a lot!

29. Paint the handle of the knife with Graveyard Earth.

30. Wash the knife handle with with Devlan Mud.

31. Highlight handle with Graveyard Earth.

32. Highlight handle again with Snakebite Leather.

33. To make the leather of the belt accessories look worn, drybrush some Codex Grey over the surfaces which would see a lot of wear-and-tear, such as around the edges, the studs on the pouch and canteen, and the tip of the bayonet holder (is it still called a scabbard if it holds a bayonet?).

34. Going back to the chips on the armour, underline some of the more prominent ones with a thin line of Dheneb Stone. I tried white, but it didn't look quite right.

35. Overline them with a Scorched Brown. This simulates a 3D effect on the chips.

36. Paint the base with Scorched Brown. Make sure this covers the black properly, (especially around the rim) so this may take more than 1 layer.

37. Now we've done most things except for the weathering pigments and metallic colour. We need to do the spray varnish now (otherwise it will kill the metallics) so grab your model and give it a spray. Make sure you wait for it to dry before you continue! It's wise to test the spray first on an unimportant model (or a bit of sprue) to check that you're not going to destroy your hard work!

38. If you want 'wet' looking mud, paint some satin varnish on the base.

39. Now we need to tie the Guardsman into the base. He's trudging through thick mud, and it looks a bit odd without some consequence of that represented on the model. I use Vallejo's Burnt Umber pigment, mixed with brush-on Vallejo Matte Varnish (to get it to stick to the model) and brush that on around the boots. I try not to go too thick, so you can still see the colours underneath showing through, but just do what looks good to you. The matte varnish works very well - once the pigment mixture has dried, even scrubbing at it with a toothbrush won't take it off easily.

40. Drybrush the mud with Calthan Brown and then Graveyard Earth to give some depth and variation.

41. If the areas where the metallics will be painted have stray coloured paint on them, it's a good idea to paint them black now. There's not enough pigment in the metallics to completely cover the area easily, and you may find underlying colours tend to show through.

42. Paint all the metal areas (knife blade, if applicable, aquila, lasgun nozzle, grenade pins etc.) with Gunmetal.

43. Wash these areas with Badab Black.

44. Highlight with Gunmetal.

45. For some select spots, highlight with Chainmail. This is rather bright, however, so don't overdo it. (The Chainmail highlights here are much too stark - I since went back and dulled them down with thin layers of Gunmetal).

46. To protect the metallic paint, it is a good idea to paint some satin varnish on the bits that will get handled lots (such as the bayonet blade) to stop it wearing off.

And we're done! Hopefully you'll have something looking like this:

So in only 46 easy steps, we have our Guardsman! Now I realise that's a lot, but most of these took less than a minute to do. In addition, you can omit some of the layering (such as on the flesh) if you want to cut down on the amount of painting. I think all the work is worth it though, especially when you see a group of them together.

Even if you've only skimmed this guide and haven't painted up a model yourself, I hope you might have picked up an idea or two. In any case, thanks for reading, and happy painting!

Painting a Guardsman, the Frag_Dad Way - Part I

Sorry it's taken so long for this to appear! I've been busy, and got very distracted... What you're reading is a guide to how I paint a basic lasgun-wielding Guardsman for the 77th.

Anyway, for anyone reading, hopefully by the end of this you'll have picked up some new techniques or ideas. I'll take you through every step, from an assembled model to the finished product. Please note that there's a LOT of pictures in this guide, as I've tried to take pictures at most steps, to be as clear as possible.
 
TODAY'S STEPS:

Before we start, please read the following general tips that you should keep in mind throughout this process:

GENERAL TIP 1: Thin your paints. This is really, really important. Thick, gluggy paint obscures detail on the model and just generally looks terrible. I'd advise you to use a wet palette (conveniently described in a previous post) but at the very least mix some water with your paint on a tile to thin it down.


GENERAL TIP 2: Find some good lighting. Painting in poor lighting conditions is really not a good idea - not because it will 'damage your eyes' or anything like that (it's actually a myth - read here. Never say 40k blogs don't teach you anything useful!) but it makes it really hard to spot parts of the model you've missed. I've been painting several times in poor light, and every time I've had a look at the model afterwards in proper light, I've spotted parts that I've completely missed painting. I use a halogen light, but at the very least, grab a cheap reading lamp.


GENERAL TIP 3: Clear some space. Painting in cramped work area is not much fun. make sure you've got room to spread out all your equipment within easy reach.


GENERAL TIP 4: Don't be afraid to take a break! Some days (particularly those when I've had too much coffee or a beer or two) I'll find that my painting just isn't going as well as I'd like. If that's the case, I'll switch to assembly of models or do something else entirely.

Here's the paints we'll be using for both Parts I and II:

I know it's a lot, so feel free to substitute as appropriate!


Right, now that's out the way, let's get started!

1. Assemble your model, and REMOVE ALL MOULD LINES! I cannot stress that enough - if you're going to spend an hour or more painting your model, the least you can do is take 5 minutes to scrape off the more obvious mould lines. I'm way too anal about it, and spend more like 45 minutes to an hour removing every single bit of mould line, but it's definitely worth it. I can't count the number of times I've seen a fantastic paint job ruined by someone being too lazy to get rid of the giant ridge smack bang in the middle of the model.

2. Prime your model. Since I go for darker, grittier colours on my models, I prime with black. If you're going for brighter colours go for a grey or a white, although I've never had experience with these. Make sure you leave it for a while (at least an hour or so, but have a look at your paint's particular instructions) before you start any further painting.

3. Now we get to the fun bit! I'm going to do something unusual here - I'll paint the armour before anything else. The reason for this is that we sponge on paint chips which can be hard to control on a model as small as a Guardsman, and there's no point painting the skin and fatigues first if you then have to go back and fix up stray paint spots. I start with Necron Abyss. Don't be afraid to be a bit reckless here - any stray paint will be covered up later. Make sure you get good coverage at this step - being a foundation paint, Necron Abyss is quite good at this. If you're using a standard Citadel paint at this step, you may require a few (thin!) coats.

4. Once the armour is all basecoated, I paint a stripe of Adeptus Battlegrey on each shoulderpad. I judge the width of this by eye, as the paint chipping later helps to disguise variations in the width from model to model.

5. I choose to apply decals on the shoulderpads of my troops, so to facilitate this I paint some 'Ard Coat (brush-on gloss varnish) on each shoulderpad to give a smooth surface for the decal to adhere to.

6. Apply the decals as described in this post.

7. Because I'll do battle-damage later, I only do a mild highlight of Regal Blue along the armour ridges. A brighter blue would interfere too much with the chipping effect, and make to model look too busy.

8. To look as though the top layers of paint on the shoulderpads have worn through, sponge some Necron Abyss over each shoulderpad. This should break up the stripes a bit. Go back over with Adeptus Battlegrey and Skull White and clean up a bit if there are too many spots of blue.

9. Now to give the effect of the shoulderpad wearing through to the (now rusted) metal below, sponge some brown over the whole armour. Pay particular attention to corners, edges, and anywhere else that would get a lot of wear and tear. I use Calthan Brown for this, but choose a colour that gives contrast with your base colour. Again, go back over with Necron Abyss and clean up areas if too much chipping has been done.

10. We'll leave the chipping for now, and come back to it later. I do it this way so that if I stuff up (such as a stray paintbrush painting over already-finished areas) I have less layers to repair.

Now you have a choice here: if you want to paint faces using layering, follow steps 11 to 18 here. If, however, you want a quicker method, replace steps 11 to 18 with a simple basecoat and wash as described here.

11. Basecoat the flesh with your chosen colours. Here, I'll use roughly 50:50 Tallarn Flesh/Dark Flesh. This may require a couple of thin coats to get good coverage.

12. Highlight raised areas with Tallarn Flesh.

13. Wash the flesh with Ogryn Flesh.

14. I paint the black part of the eyes now, for the same reason that we've left the paint chipping alone for now - if I make a mistake, I don't have so many repairs to do. He'll look a bit nightmarish, but the next step will fix that!

15. Using a fine-tip paintbrush, pop a small dot of white in each corner of the eyes.

16. Now back to the rest of the flesh - highlight again with Tallarn Flesh.

17. Not highlight with 50:50 Tallarn Flesh/Dheneb Stone. For the hands, I just highlight the ridges of the fingers.

18. Finally, do an extreme edge highlight with Dheneb Stone. That's the flesh all done!

19. Basecoat the fatigues with Codex Grey. Try and get decent coverage, but it doesn't have to be perfect since we'll wash it and paint over most of it in the next step.

20. Wash liberally with Badab Black wash. (Sorry about the photo!)

21. Highlight again with Codex Grey, covering about 75% of the fatigues. Just leave the recesses as they are. (No photo here.)

22. Highlight again with 50:50 Codex Grey and Skull White or Undercoat White. This time, you want to cover about 50% of the fatigues. Again, on the average trooper I leave it at that, as it gives a nice contrast but is relatively quick.

23. Touch up any black areas such as the belt or boots with Chaos Black or Undercoat Black (the latter being preferable due to its better coverage).

We'll leave it here for now! We've basically finished the bulk of the painting, and now we just need to do the details. We'll come back to this on Wednesday, so stay tuned for Part II, in which we will finish off your Guardsman.

Update: Now Part II is up, which can be found here.

Fresh Meat For The Grinder!

I finally finished some more Guardsmen! This is the majority of Squad 812, with only their sergeant and heavy weapon to be completed. I might add some snow or grass clumps to add some extra interest to the bases, but for now I'll leave them.

Sorry about the dodgy photoshop job, but I was in a hurry!

Let me know what you think!

1 Down, Way Too Many to Go...

But at least it's progress! I've finally happy to call one of my models complete - my first Guardsman! Here he is:

I don't have too much to say about him at this point, but I'd love to hear your opinions - that includes any critical feedback you might have! Keep an eye out for a stage-by-stage painting guide for my Guardsmen, I'll get it up soon.

P.S. - I'm sorry about the lack of updates lately, I'll try to get them coming regularly again!

It's a Lot to Weather... (Painters' Help Needed Please!)

Bad puns aside, I've got some new work to show you! (Up until now, the stuff you've seen is quite old).

I haven't picked up a paintbrush for a while, so I've gotten back into it over the last few days. I'll show you some more substantial results later, but for now here's my first foray into weathering.

If you've read the background material for my army here, you'll know that my guardsmen are supposed to be a tough, battle-hardened force. To represent this on my models, I want to have used-looking armour and equipment.

I've gone for the technique of using a sponge to dab on spots of colour to represent the paint chipping off. I need to do it for all my troops so I need a quick but good-looking method.

Firstly, here's what I've done. Note that the rest of the trooper was already painted, I've just tested the method out on this shoulderpad:

To do it, I've done the following:

1. Basecoat with Necron Abyss.

2. Paint a grey stripe of Adeptus Battlegrey.

3. Using a small bit of foam (taken from Citadel movement trays), sponge some Necron Abyss over the grey stripe to make it look as if it has worn through to the layer beneath.

4. Using Calthan Brown, repeat the sponging technique.

5. The sponging technique gives lots of little spots which, in my opinion, make it look too messy. I went back and painted over some of the small spots with Necron Abyss or Adeptus Battlegrey, depending on where they were, to 'repair' these small chips.

6. Using a fine brush and Skull White, underline some of the larger chips.

7. Again with the fine brush but now with Scorched Brown, paint a thin line at the top of the bigger chips. Steps 6 and 7 are meant to give an illusion of depth, but I haven't quite gotten there yet.

8. This time, I went back and painted a 77 symbol but purposely doing it broken so it looked chipped, but in future this would be done after step 2. Note that I'm not sure this symbol will be a 77, but I wanted something to go there on the test model and I haven't yet come up with a symbol that I can freehand consistently.

So please let me know what you think!

From any readers who have used this method before, I'd love some hints and tips to improve my work. Please leave any and all advice in the comments!

As always, thanks for reading and stay tuned!

Guardsmen Conversions

Just a quick update - I'm still working away on various projects, but for now, here's a couple of conversions! I want to avoid having a whole army of troops who look the same, so every now and then I try and pop in a small conversion to add some variety. These are two examples:

Not too much to say about them, except that they were before I got my new tools that I use for Green Stuff work (more to come later!), so I'm not completely happy with it. Unless you look closely, however, they don't look too bad.

As always, thanks for looking!