paint: iron warriors: motor pool

Chelonian III & Scutum IX

Work continues on the Iron Warriors. I'm just about ready for salt-masking...

Warsmith Thokcha's Rusted Motor Pool!

...fingers crossed it goes as well, or slightly better, than it did on the Hell Brutes.

paint: iron warriors: sturm

...did I say 7 vehicles left? Tell ya what, let's go ahead and drop it to 6. ;)

Sturm: Helbrute: add CCW, heavy flamer, power scourge
(clickable)

Sturm's companion Helbrute, Drang, hasn't had any work done since we saw him last. I think he'll be an intermittent project until I can knock out the rest of the vehicle base coats all at once. Because of the sheer surface area of stippling and salt masking 5 Rhino-sized vehicles with dozer blades, this will require a solid chunk of uninterrupted hobby time. I'm hoping to find such a chunk before August switches over to September.

paint: iron warriors: iron palatine gibeon with breaching squad aerugo

An update? That's unpossible...

Iron Palatine Gibeon leads Breaching Squad Aerugo

Iron Palatine Gibeon: Chaos Lord: Burning Brand of Skallathrax, Veteran of the Long War, Mark of Nurgle
(clickable)

Breaching Squad Aerugo: Plague Marines: bolter, plasma gun, flamer

Breaching Squad Aerugo: Plague Marines: bolter x3

It's been a VERY long time coming, but with these 7 models done, I've now completed all the infantry models from my original Iron Warriors list built... how many years ago? I know that none of the models have the IW logo on the right shoulder, and that the banner poles are bare, but they're finally to a point that I don't feel embarrassed fielding them for small games or Zone Mortalis. To go bigger, I'll need to finish the 7 vehicles I originally built for the list...

paint: work-in-progress: iron warriors: sturm & aerugo

Took a longer painting hiatus than expected after Adepticon. While I was super energized for competition level painting, my hobby-area was a bit of a disaster and it took some time to get off my keister to fix it and get back to painting. Put some work in over the past week in the hope that I can get these models finished before the end of the month.

Sturm: after verdigris wash

Iron Palatine Gibeon w/ Aerugo: also after verdigris wash

miscellaneous: victoria minis' penal guard & arcadian females

So I went to Adepticon with a notion to pick up some minis to flesh my Iron Warriors out to 2000 points for the Independent Character's Hobby Progress Challenge. My initial plans were to pick up some Cataphracti Terminators to convert into Warsmith Thokcha and his retinue. However, a couple weeks before Adepticon, ForgeWorld's sneak peak of The Horus Heresy Book III - Extermination revealed an entry for Iron Warrior specific Terminators. I decided to put the Warsmith and his retinue on hold until we see what those figures look like. Despite it being far more to paint, this pushed me toward my back-up plan of Chaos Raptors and Cultists/Traitor Guard.

Now, when I think of cultists in an Iron Warriors' army, I'm greatly influenced by Graham McNeill's Storm of Iron to abandon the robed humans of the Dark Vengeance box set and instead field enslaved humans (Imperial Guard in particular) being driven inexorably forward as unto their deaths as cannon fodder/meat shield. With this idea in mind, I was excited to see that Victoria Miniatures would be bringing both Penal Guard and Arcadian Female models to the show.

Victoria Miniatures: Arcadian Rifles Squad (female)

Victoria Miniatures: Arcadian Rifles Squad (female): detail

As it turns out, Victoria put out a call for help on the Victoria Miniatures Facebook page asking if there were any volunteers to help her pack up product for the show. The guys I drove up with and I spent a couple hours Wednesday morning packing Inquisition and Arcadian Female blisters and I got to see the models up close and personal. The castings are good, with crisp, well-sculpted detail. There are some instances of flash, but they're generally super thin and break/scrape off with little effort. My favorite part of the minis is that the proportions in the legs and musculature in the exposed arms register as female without thrusting breasts, hips or thighs in your face. There's nothing pin-up about these minis. They look like real women in an active duty military.

Victoria Miniatures: Penal Guard

Victoria Miniatures: Penal Guard: detail

The Penal Guard I picked up look to be from a different batch of resin, but are just as crisp and detailed, with surprise details I never saw when looking through pics online (the back ripped with lash marks comes to mind). There is a bit more flash on these, but so far it's cleaned just as easily as with the females. The only word of warning I would give is to take extra care with any parts containing resin chains. They're particularly brittle and I broke two of them test-fitting pieces.

All-in-all they're both great kits. Though they do cost a premium ($50 for 10 figures), I don't think anyone out there is doing these themes as well as Victoria Miniatures, and if it's a look you're going for you cannot go wrong with them.

That being said, one of the reasons I was so excited to snag these minis were that their parts break-down is almost identical to Games Workshop's Imperial Guard figures, which I have a whole mess of still on sprue from a sidelined project. Looking at the parts break-down, I figured I could mix-and-match bits from 10 Penal Guard with 10 Imperial Guard to make a batch of 20 easily recognizable prisoners. Unfortunately, the viability of this came into question when I started putting the pieces side-by-side...

Penal Guard (white) | Imperial Guard (grey)

As you can see from the pics, the scale is a bit off. The Imperial Guard are sculpted in GW's (in)famous 28mm "Heroic" scale, while the Victoria Miniatures appear to be a true 28mm. The legs don't look too off, but directly next to each other, the heads, torsos and arms have a distinctly noticeable difference. At this point I was a bit disheartened at my plans, but very glad I picked up a second box of Penal Guard, figuring I could possibly throw some chains on the Arcadian Females, intersperse them with the Penal Guard, and have two units of 15 co-ed prisoners.

But, since I already had the pieces laid out, I decided to give it one last go ("For science!") and mock up some figures.

Mixed Kits (click for larger)

They don't mix nearly as badly as I'd thought. The scale is undoubtedly off, but it's only grossly so with certain bits combinations. Even those combos that jump out as off-scale will probably be minimized once the figures are painted. I wouldn't go so far as to call the two kits truly (haphazardly) interchangeable, but I think some careful planning will provide a nicely mixed unit with a prisoner theme throughout.

Of course, there are some bits combinations to avoid at all costs...

paint: work-in-progress: sturm & drang, pt 3

Before we left for Adepticon, I had a chance to wash the salt off the Dreads. There were three or four spots where the resin came back through - not sure whether I didn't wash the release agent well enough pre-priming, scrubbed too hard with the brush, or a little of both, but they should be minor fixes. For my first try with this technique, I'm fairly impressed. I feel like I'll be able to make these work.

paint: work-in-progress: iron warriors: strum & drang, pt 2

Crisis encountered, crisis averted.

Started this morning by putting a quick splash of VMA Black Metal over the salt to get my base metal/shadows taken care of. My second layer however, VMA Gun Grey, must be from a bad batch. There's WAY to much pigment in the bottle and it clumps no matter how I thin it. The color clogged my airbrush so quick this morning that after three cleanings, I still didn't have a drop of Gun Grey on my model.

Went out for my morning run thinking I'd either have to make a trip to the hobby shop today or wait until after Adepticon to complete the next step. Funny thing about running, it sometimes clears the head enough to rethink a problem. Somewhere around mile two, I got the bright idea to try mixing my shadow and highlight to create a mid-tone close enough to work. After some experimentation, I ended up using a 4:1 ratio of VMA Black Metal to VMA Steel for the mid-tone, and sprayed from an angle 45 degrees above the model. Seemed to work well, so I smacked all the bits with straight VMA steel from directly above.

The overall effect is lighter than I usually go for, but once I've washed it a few times and/or oiled it up, I think that'll calm down. I'm a little worried there might be too many layers to easily pull off the salt. Need to make sure all the layers I dry, so I'm going to wait 'till everyone's asleep before I pull out the warm water and Q-tips and see if the experiment worked.

paint: work-in-progress: iron warriors: sturm & drang

With the Turtons nearing completion and still two days to go before the big drive to Adepticon, I decided to see if I could get the first few layers of paint on Sturm & Drang, in the hopes of finishing one for a Dreadnought Arena event at Friday's 4th Annual BootaTown.

First up I put the rust layers down. The airbrush got the first layer of Vallejo Model Air's "Hull Red" down quick, but stippling the usual combo of Citadel's "Vermin Brown" and "Macharius Solar Orange" took far longer than it did on infantry. I'll likely switch to sponging the rust on when I get to the Rhinos and Vindicators.

With the rust down, I spent some time searching the internet for "salt mask weathering" and found several articles aimed at scale modelers. Once I found Roman's article on the subject I headed to the store to find some Aquanet and coarse sea salt. With some fear in my heart and a "Well, you can always strip 'em again" shrug on my shoulders, I proceeded to spray and sprinkle all the parts.

I won't lie, the salt looks a bit heavy-handed from here. However, I figure it'll be fairly easy to cover up excess rust, but a royal pain-in-the-but to add rust over metal later. The plan is to let the parts dry overnight and start applying metals in the morning. I may tape my fingers crossed before going to bed...

miscellaneous: adepticon 2014: and so it continues...

...but with revised plans.

Back in January I posted grandiose plans to finish a Dreadball team, Dreadnought, and Crystal Brush squad for Adepticon. Since then, I've plugged away on my Iron Warriors for the Independent Characters' Hobby Progress Challenge, but have been less than pleased with my work on the Adeptiplans. After a failed start, Simple Green bath, and another failed attempt, I'm calling it on my Crystal Brush plans. There aren't enough hours between now and then to finish them and the models that are game necessary.

Of the models that are game necessary, the Dreadnaughts are currently on the back-burner after a Simple Green bath. They got stripped not because I was unhappy with their progress, but because the paint started stripped off when I started stippling on rust. I let them soak in Simple Green a couple days, washed them a couple times, and just this morning got a nice primer coat on them. Fingers crossed they take the paint well this time.

The Halfshell Heroes (which will likely undergo a name change when I deign their logo) are priority number 1 at the moment. I was finally able to get my sculpting mojo going again and knocked out the last of the "turtles" this weekend. Still have some work to do on "Slash" - the big guy in the back - but these guys also got primed this morning and will be getting paint ASAP.

Halfshell Heroes: Jacks (clickable)

Halfshell Heroes: Guards (clickable)

I plan on using the airbrush to pre-shading the team, then use glazing to provide the majority of the color. It worked okay on the Barsoom diorama and I hope I can make it work again here.

build: iron warriors: sturm & drang

A couple days off in a row combined with a forgiving wife allowed me to finish assembling both "Helbrutes" last night. They're currently soaking in soapy water now with an eye towards getting their first layers of rust tomorrow.

Sturm: CCW, heavy flamer, power scourge

Sturm: plasma cannon, missile launcher

Sturm: multi-angle view

Sturm's thigh conversion ended up a fraction too long, but it's only grossly noticeable from certain angles. I'm pretty happy with how the foot turned out and how well the whole pose works with the close combat arms.

Drang's conversion work isn't nearly as dramatic, just some cosmetic changes and some toe repositioning to get him to fit on the base. I still like to think I gave him more life in his positioning than you typically see with Dreadnaught chassis.

Drang: CCW, heavy flamer, power scourge

Drang: multi-melta, missile launcher | lascannon, missile launcher

The plan is to use these guys as a test-bed for airbrush and salt-masking work before I get into the vehicle-heavy second half of the Hobby Progress Challenge. Still need to get a couple things from the store before I can tackle it in earnest, but I'm excited to give 'em both a go.

Also, thanks to the advice in this thread, I've started Angel Exterminatus in the hopes of finding inspiration for the 600 points I'm currently missing for the second half of the HPC. I've got my fingers crossed for some Legion allies I can proxy in through the CSM codex.

misc: update: state of the warband address

After I finished the bases for the Iron Warriors, I moved the completed models over as time permitted. While I was taking pics of the Slaughterers this morning, I thought it would be a good time to take quick snaps of everybody and take stock of where the list is at the present time. First, a refresher on the list, as tooled for the first part of the Hobby Progress Challenge and Zone Mortalis...

Iron Warband of Warsmith Thokcha SIEGE ASSAULT HQ: Iron Palatine Gibeon - 115 pts . . . Chaos Lord: Burning Brand of Skalathrax . . . Veteran of the Long War, Mark of Nurgle Troop 1: Breaching Squad Aerugo - 170 pts . . . Plague Marines: +1 dude, flamer, plasma gun . . . Veterans of the Long War Troop 2: Iron Aspirant Sikhote and Breaching Squad Ferrugo - 220 pts . . . Plague Marines: +2 dudes, flamer, plasma gun . . . . . . Champion: Power Fist . . . Veterans of the Long War Elite 1: Iron Ascendant Scoriæ and his "Slaughterers" - 264 pts . . . Chosen: +2 dudes, paired lightning claws x2, melt gun x2 . . . . . . Champion: paired lightning claws . . . Mark of Khorne, Veterans of the Long War TRENCH DEFENSE Heavy 1: Captain Ahnighito's Zigouilleurs - 154 pts . . . Havocs: +1 dude, flamer, heavy bolter x2, meltagun . . . . . . Champion: power weapon, combo-melts . . . Veterans of the Long War Troop 3: Polybolos Alpha - 188 pts . . . Chaos Space Marines: +6 dudes, plasma gun, lascannon Troop 4: Polybolos Beta - 188 pts . . . Chaos Space Marines: +6 dudes, plasma gun, lascannon AUXILLIARY Elite 2: Sturm - 130 pts . . . Helbrute: add CCW, heavy flamer, power scourge Elite 3: Drang - 130 pts . . . Helbrute: add CCW, heavy flamer, power scourge

As one can see, the list didn't change significantly from last edition. I'll grant that much of that was because I'd already assembled everything but the Helbrutes, however, I do have enough spare parts that I could easily add figures or re-tool the existing one's weapons for the new edition if I wanted. I do not. I created the list to be thematic, and I'm sticking to it.

Which brings us to the the pictographic record of the based army as of this morning, in list order:

SIEGE ASSAULT

Iron Palatine Gibeon w/ Breaching Squad Aerugo

Iron Aspirant Sikhote w/ Breaching Squad Ferrugo

Iron Ascendant Scoriæ and his "Slaughterers"

TRENCH DEFENSE

Captain Ahnighito's Zigouilleurs

Polybolos Alpha

Polybolos Beta

AUXILLIARY

Sturm and Drang

Holy cow! When you look at it like that, it's only 9 models to go before I'm finished with the list! This thing just might be achievable after all...

paint: iron warriors: scoriæ's slaughterers

Another month gone by and another unit completed for The Independent Characters' Hobby Progress Challenge. That's two-for-two! I think it may be a new personal record for organized hobby progress!

Just as I tried to subtly differentiate my Nurgle marked marines through excess rust and corrosion, I tried to use paint to help separate these guys as marked by Khorne. The first step to differentiating them was to give them a brighter bronze base than my other figures. This bronze still got the same patina wash as the regular troops, but I think starting from a brighter spot makes them that tiny bit shinier. I've also minimized the hazard striping, isolating it to the left shoulder pad. Because I kept the same amount of black on the weapons and armor plating, this lack of striping has the added effect of making the unit a little more dark and sinister as a whole.

I'm not 100% happy with the flat black, but all of my attempts to make it pop - red glazing, edge highlighting, patchwork of skulls - only made the weapons look worse. I'll let the ideas percolate a bit and see if I come up with something else. If I do, great! If I don't... these guys are considered [i]done[/i].

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go sculpt some Dreadball turtles.

paint: iron warriors: all my base...

are belong to finished!

Iron Warband Bases: all 8 units worth

The two 60mm bases are for my Chaos Dreads (Helbrutes). The top row is for my Chosen unit. The two below that are for each breaching squad. The two big blocks at the bottom are for the identical CSM squads, while the bases between them are for the Havoc squad that "leads" them.

Spent the last few hobby sessions partially as a break from painting armor, partially as a procrastination tactic on some Dreadball conversion work I seem to have lost my sculpting mojo for. Because of some failed starts in 2012, I had no clue how I was going to paint them, I only that I wanted to include green at the recommendation of one of the painting friends I look most up to. I decided on a mix warm and cold colors partially to experiment with something new and partially to help compliment the figures instead of compete with them. I realize the colors start to look a bit unnatural, but I still dig 'em anyway.

The base red-brown was airbrushed, then dry-brushed with a couple different shades of blue-green. The metals were glazed multiple times with various brownish reds and oranges 'till they looked rusty, and the rocks/concrete/wood got various green washes. I like the colors as a whole, and I like them with the test mini I kept holding up during painting. However, I'm a little apprehensive about how they'll compliment the army as a whole. We'll see when I start putting gluing the two together later this week.