Betrayal at Istvaan III Quartet Complete

As you can see from the photo above, after a slight mad dash for the finish I managed to get both the World Eater and Emperors Children Legionnaires completed last night:

I've really enjoyed doing this 'mini' project. It's been great fun trying to build characterful miniatures and experimenting to come up with fitting paint schemes for the individual legions. The mini's are now bound for my local Waterstones where they should be displayed alongside their Horus Heresy novels. More images and angles of the Death Guard and Sons of Horus miniatures can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pigofsparta/sets/

 I hope to add a Contemptor Dreadnought to this merry band in the next couple of weeks as well but have yet to pick a legion for him. Will I be doing more Heresy related projects in future? Well I've a couple in the works just now so the answer is a resounding yes, as for the details of them you'll just have to stay tuned...

Betrayal at Istvaan III update

Just about finished with these guys now. I need to put the Legion marking on the Emperors Children marine and build their bases to match the first pair's but I'm pretty happy with how they're looking.

 I feel I might need to 'redden' the armour of the Emperors Children marine a little though, I went with a more regal purple than the one that Forge World, or indeed Games Workshop have used on theirs as I feel it fits more with the feel that the EC have in the book series but I think it still needs a tiny bit more depth to it. I've deliberately kept the highlights on it subtle so as not to detract from the gold so I think a glaze of Baal Red might pull the armour into line.

I'm really pleased with the World Eater. The now that the blue's offsetting the white I think he looks much better. I think the flamer looks pretty good with a nice simple paint scheme too. I figured that the Legion wouldn't concern itself with things looking pretty, only functional so that's what I went with.  I've free handed the Legion symbol on his pauldron but the photo I took was out of focus and it's now snowing outside so I'm not going back out to photograph just now... 

Crusade/Heresy Era Death Guard Painting Tutorial Part I - Worn and Dirty White

 

I was asked if I could do a tutorial on how I painted the above Death Guard Cataphractii Terminator by one of the Fraters on the Bolter and Chainsword so armed with my paints, brushes and camera I've set out to tryand do just that.

 Before we start, these are the paints you'll need to replicate this colour scheme exactly*:

For the White:

*I say exactly because I've used a combination of 'old' and 'new' Citadel paints here. If you're just using 'new' paints then the following conversion chart will help:

Chaos Black = Abaddon Black

Khemri Brown = Baneblade Brown
Dheneb Stone = Rakarth Flesh
Devlan Mud = Agrax Earthshade

First up we're going to paint the White armour plates. We're doing them first because a) they're the largest area of colour and b) because we're drybrushing which will be messy...

Undercoat your chosen mini(s) with a Black primer of your choosing. I used Chaos Black spray because that's what I have but feel free to use whatever you're happy with.

Next Basecoat the mini with Khemri Brown

Then Wash it with Devlan Mud

Now comes the messy part. We're going to build up the the white over several layers of paint which is what helps to give the dirty, chipped, well-worn look to the armour plates. You'll notice as you build up the layers of Drybrushing that some of the details on the mini are beginning to lose definition, don't worry as final step will fix that. 

Drybrush the mini with Khemri Brown

followed by a Drybrush of a 50/50 mix of Khemri Brown and Dheneb Stone

then pure Dheneb Stone

then a 50/50 mix of Dheneb Stone and Ulthuan Grey

followed by pure Ulthuan Grey

then a 50/50 mix of Ulthuan Grey and White Scar

and finally pure White Scar before finishing off the white plates by glazing them with Devlan Mud.

In Part II I'll show you how I painted the green armour plates and finished up the detailing of the mini.

Crusade/Heresy Era Death Guard Painting Tutorial Part II - Green and Details

In Part one of the tutorial I showed you how I painted the white armour plates on the Death Guard Cataphractii Terminator. Now that the messiest part of the painting is out of the way I'll move on to how I did the green armour plates and the details.

For the green armour you'll need the following paints:

As before I've used the paints I have personally. If you're using just 'new' Citadel paints then substitute colours as below:

Knarloc Green = Loren Green

Devlan Mud = Argrax Earthshade

The first layer is a 50/50 mix of Chaos Black and Knarloc Green

next carefully Drybrush the green areas with pure Knarloc Green followed by a 50/50 mix of Knarloc Green and Ulthuan Grey

Finally glaze the green with Waywatcher Green and once that's dry add a light glaze of Devlan Mud to tie tone of the green to the tone of the White.

Now you can finish the mini off by adding the detailing. I used Boltgun Metal washed with Devlan Mud and Badab Black for the iron areas. Brazen Brass washed with Devlan Mud for the brass aquila and Chaos Black highlighted with Adeptus Battlegrey then washed with Badab Black for the 'soft armour' and cabling, but that was just my preference.

If you have any questions or comments then please ask/leave them, thanks

James

Mk.IIe Phobos Predator Executioner

Last year I built and painted a Mk.IIa Phobos Rhino (pictured above) inspired by the Deimos pattern kits that Forge World has been releasing, I envisioned the Phobos pattern as sort of bridging the gap between the contemporary Space Marine tanks and the older Deimos patterns. Recently re-discovered STC acheaeotech has yielded more destructive designs from the forges of Phobos and I'm pleased to present the WIP of the Mk.IIe Phobos Predator Executioner:

As you can see in the images below, I've remodelled the turret and converted the fore armour of the Predator to resemble the look of the Phobos Rhino:

 What I can't quite make up my mind about though is whether to mount the turret to the rear similar to the Deimos pattern Predators:

Or I can mount the turret in the centre like the contemporary Mars pattern Mk.IVb Predator:

Either way there's still quite a bit to do before it's ready for painting, not least re-attaching the sponson mounted Heavy Bolters  but I'm pretty pleased with how it's looking so far.

Betrayal at Istvaan III update

Made a start on painting this pair today. I decided to paint the World Eater in a similar way to the Death Guard Cataphractii as in my opinion the sons of Angron wouldn't spend much time keeping their armour clean. The Emperors Children marine will be pristine in contrast as I can't see them looking anything but their best unless it's completely unavoidable.

Eversor Assassin Painting Challenge

As Dark Materials Miniatures has mentioned, some (read, 'a long') time ago we arranged a painting challenge. The idea was that we'd both paint up an Eversor Assassin and see who came up with the best mini. I've finally got myself into gear and got mine ready to go:

 Originally I had conceived of a grand scenic base for the mini but try as I might I just couldn't get any of my ideas to work properly. For those that don't already know I'm a little bit fanatical about my mini's looking 'right'. I can spend hours putting a mini into various blu-tacked poses until I'm happy because if they don't look natural or achievable by the mini in question or even if the mini just looks off, I won't or rather can't paint it. To me things like this can ruin even the best of paint jobs so it's just not worth risking. I know that's probably a bad obsession but I like to think that my finished mini's vindicate this 'belief'. 

With that in mind I opted for a simple rubble strewn base as though the uncharacteristically static Eversor (to be fair I think this is one of the older Citadel mini's that has aged fairly well) is sweeping his surroundings, assessing a target or just posing... to be honest I'm not going to argue with a drug-fuelled hyper-aggressive killing machine. 

Now all I have to do is decide what shade of black to paint him...

More Betrayal at Istvaan III minis

Managed to get the second pair of minis for my planned 'Istvaan III quartet' assembled this afternoon, marines of World Eaters (left) and Emperor's Children (right) Legions. I'm hoping to have them finished and ready for display in my local Waterstones by the end of the week.