Marines! .............. But not the HH kind

This is a bit of a catch up post given I got these figures years ago when we were all getting into pirate games. These figures were never painted by me and there is a chance they could see use in one of the random game systems that I keep picking up and I fancied something a bit different to paint, so here they are.

I actually did some historical research for these too! The Royal Navy itself has a page on uniforms throughout the ages.  They appear to be a mix of a couple of periods, so I stayed with the colours that looked pretty standard - white trousers and cross belts and red coats.  Did you know e redcoats weren't because they didn't show the blood, as popular myth would have it, but because red was the cheapest material available at the time? And that's straight from the horses mouth too.

The officer gets a natty blue coat to help his stand out.

These chaps may face off against my pirates at some point if I run a game, but don't hold your breath!

Now with added colour!

Work in progress on the Praetors and Mechanicum stuff. I'm trying to keep up with regular blogs to maintain the discipline of doing a little each day.

TTFN!

Next Please!

I'm trying to keep disciplined with my painting so on Friday I started the next batch of figures for the Horus Heresy. A Magos and two Castellaxs for the Mechanicum and two Praetors for my Iron Hands.

I've been unmotivated to start my Iron Hands and I think the colour scheme was part of what was holding me back. After seeing the scarlet and red on the titans I just wanted to continue with that. So I am going to!

Yup, my IH watched Ferrus fall and leaderless they turned to their comrades in arms for leadership in service to the Emperor. They'll be carrying both IH and mechanicum iconography to show their allegiance.

First off these guys got the Bronze then Brass and then finally Gold dry brush treatment and today I started with the thinned down scarlet. I took a photo of that but the red isn't bold enough to show properly yet.

TTFN.

FINISHED!!!

It has been an absolute delight painting these and now that they are finished I must, once again, thank the Silverback for his encouragement to get stuck in with the weathering.

These have to be some of the best painted miniatures I have done and a lot of that is down to the final effect that the weathering gives. I'm immensely stoked and ready for more hobbying as these beauties have given me a real boost in morale and motivation.

A shout out to Vallejo as well for their awesome acrylic liquid matt varnish that is really good and coupled with Micro-set fixing agent, it has merged the decals into the figure really well to the point where it is hard to tell if some of them are actually transfers.

First up the Knight Titan. A nice model and it being plastic did make it easier to paint than the Castigator.

Next is the Thanatar. I've started thinking of it a 'the little model' as I've been working on it at the same time as the titans.......however it is far from small as evidenced by the dead marine at its feet. ;-)

Last but by no means least.....the totally mean looking Castigator. A great model and I can't wait to see it striding across the battlefield!

TTFN!!!

HOT STABBY DEATH STICK!!

Well that's what it is!

I'd had a mind to perhaps go with a nice eerie green glow for the sword but I saw someone else had done a heat effect on theirs and I thought it was better suited to go with the rest of the paint scheme.

Not much to do now. Just the base and dirt weathering on the legs and a varnish.

Ho Ho! Nearly there. Now the question is what to start next? I should really make inroads in the mountain of HH infantry that I've got in pieces under my desk before I treat myself to painting another big thing. However I think I'm going to paint the two castellax and the magos I've got hanging around and then I'll move on to the infantry.

It might be good to actually finish some of these bits and get them shipped home. ;-)

TTFN

Mechanicum troops

with me finishing my first burst of death guard, I wanted to go back and work up my mechanicum forces.

20 thralls with las locks and 10 with mitra-locks, supported by a thanatar.

Can I also say my heat gun from hobycraft is invaluable at helping straighten, wiggle and bend forge world resin that doesn't always meet up perfectly.

...and a little more.

Just a few tweaks today and some blackening on the exhaust stacks. I just used a darkish brown dry-brushed on first followed by some black. Quick, simple and I think quite effective.

 TTFN

More fun with weathering.

Today I got the chance to add some weathering to my Thanatar and the Castigator. Once again I have been pretty heavy handed and as I've used metallics the pictures look a bit glossy. I'm hoping that a coat of matt varnish will tone them down slightly to reduce that.

I can't quite decided what to do with the Castigators sword. Leave it as is or try some glowing effects. Green glow? Blue glow?

Choices choices.

Tomorrow I'll be adding some ink & wash weathering to pick out the rivets and to add some dirt and then after that it is basing and mud weathering for the legs.

TTFN!

Trials with weathering

So.....The Silverback quite rightly pointed out recently that I should really up my painting game and start weathering vehicles. Given the imminent completion of the first of my HH 30K stuff I thought it was the best time to start. This way there will be some consistency across all of my 30K stuff.

I have started with the wear and damage weathering and I wanted to create layers of damage to add some depth. I began with Gunmetal Blue and painted and sponged that on to create the large areas of damage. On top of that I used Gunmetal which was sparingly painted and sponged to highlight the previous weathering.

Finally I used a steel colour to create scratches and recent chips in the paint. I have been quite heavy handed but I am happy with a very battle worn look as it strikes me as being fitting for the HH era when assets were (were? Past future tense?) being used constantly.

Still to do is the exhaust weathering on the back and also the inking to pick out rivets and add dirt details to the exposed machinery parts. I'll probably use some black washes in places to dull down the metallic weathering done so far. The leg dirt weathering will be done when I come to do the base as I think that will give the best level of colour consistency.

 TTFN!