Dark Angels successor chapter [WIP]

So I love power armor... I mean - I LOOOVE power armor! I just sold my old space marine army, and now I want to do a new one. It might seem crazy, but to me the whole idea of building and painting an army with power is alot more pleasing than actually owning a complete army. Because of this I have decided to start a new project. It might get somewhere, and it might not. That probably depends on the age of sigmar. But until age of sigmar hits the shelves, we wont know for sure if it's worth getting into. So for now this is what I'm going to be painting -

Lo and behold the marine-man-thing

I have been wanting to do this colourscheme for a long time, but it felt a bit redundant to do a second space marine army as long as the old one was still on the shelf.

I will of course be doing freehand on these guys, and as you can see the chapter icon is heavly dark angels inspired

And the tactical symbol is also painted on

Now I just need some flock and tufts on the base, and it's done.

Hope you like it as much as I do - Andreas 2.0

Are you ready for the Age of Sigmar?

Well I am... kind of. I always wanted a skaven army, and should the age of sigmar prove to be a cool skirmish game with round bases, I am all in. As for now, I'll leave it at these 8 rats until we know more about the game.

There will be more Skitarii at some point, but right now GR and I both have other projects we want to work on. I'm just finishing up the last few pages of an exam paper, but some time next week, I'll have som great pictures to show you.

/Andreas 2.0

I'm cheating too then...

OK, so we know something is coming up with Warhammer fantasy. We also have a faint idea that it might be possible to play with round bases. This is where I start getting interested, and I have started toying with some skaven clan rats. I'm not sure if that is the army I want to play yet, but I had to start somewhere. I will probably paint a unit from a few different armies before I decide sometime around the release of the rulebook. Enough talk - Pictures.

I'm doing cobblestone bases on these guys because I have a vision of doing alot of city terrain for fantasy.

Here are a few pictures of the test model. It's what I would call high tabletop standard for warhammer fantasy which is where I'm most comfortable. If I spend any more time on a single mini, I don't see myself finishing an army :p

Lets see what happens next ;)

Finished Kastelan Robot

Nothin much to say about this. I added the base which makes the model look incredibly cool. I can't wait to see the finished unit. I just don't know if I want to paint another one right now or if I'm going to paint something else.

[WIP] Kastelan Robot - Almost done

I'm soooo close to being done with the first robot here. The pictures can speak for themselves on this one ;)

[WIP] Kastelan Robots - continued

Today I have been working on the second robot. As mentioned earlier, I really wanted it to look like he is running, so I have been cutting and gluing most of the day to make that happen. This is the result.

It isn't perfect, but at least it's alot more dynamic than than Games Workshop inteded (which is good).

Besides this guy, I have started painting the other robot. I was pitched the idea of doing a digital reticle instead of making a completely black screen. Here's the result so far.

I personally think it is a cool effect that outshines the original model by far. The method of painting this however, is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. It requires blending and paper-thin freehand lines that have to be highlighted a few times to give the illusion of a blue glow. I don't think I want to do more than a few of these guys lest I go crazy.

Well thats all for now. I'll hopefully finish this fine piece sometime tomorrow.

Cheers - Andreas 2.0 

Kastelan Robots - (and a feeling that GR is cheating on me)

I'm just kidding about the last thing - Of course GR is cheating on me. If he has an itch, he is going to scratch it with or without my approval ;)

I, however, am not even close to running out of pure 'mechanicus joy'. I love almost everything about the new models, and I can hardly wait to get my hands on the next wave. Right now I'm working on this guy.

The only thing about the kastelan robots, I really dislike, is the eye-screen-thingy. Because of its ridiculous look, I decided to greenstuff over it, as to give the helmet a completely smooth surface on which I can go nuts with freehand! Besides the helmet, I had GR fix the leg to allow for more bend in the knee. I also added an extra gun barrel to the one arm, so that it looks twinlinked even though I used a powerfist part for the other hand. The overall look of this model is (in my book) far superior to what GW has come up with.

The next robot is going to be slightly more challenging as I will try to make it look like it is running. Stay tuned for more in weeks to come.

Cheers - Andreas 2.0

The Skitarii so far

We haven't gotten around to getting some good pictures of the models, so this is all I can do for now with my phone.

The two walkers make everything look even cooler, and I personally can't wait to get started on the next 10 vanguards! 

So for me the painting schedule looks something like

10 Vanguards

2-4 Kastellan Robots

10 Infiltrators

Some electropriests

5 More rangers

1 More walker of some kind

... And a knight at some point :D

You probably thought, we had abandoned the mechanicus project already

Well... We haven't.

Rasmus and I have both just been really busy, but now the wheels are turning once again.

Right now I'm putting the finishing touches on the ironstrider, and Rasmus has actually already finished the dunecrawler! Now we just need to get some pictures of the walkers, and then we can move on to other projects.

For now I have another little thing to share - A friend of mine asked me to do a some freehand writing on his ultramarine dreadnought, and seeing as I love me some freehand, I of course said yes.

This is what I came up with. It took about 1-1,5 hours, which was a nice balance between quality and speed. I could probably have done a few things different, but I didn't want to put to much time into something that wasn't mechanicus ;)

I'll update later with some pictures of a mechanicus crawler or two.

WIP Ironstrider

I just wanted to post a quick WIP of the ironstrider. It is an amazing model, and I really want to see a full unit of these things, but boy is this not crazy complicated?! I don't think I'm ever going to get 3 painted. Anyhow - here is a picture of the lower part (The upper part of the model is mostly unpainted anyways).

Red cloth and metal

Most of the skitarii army will consist of either some form of red or metal. This is why there are two crucial things to think about when painting these models.

1. Those two parts need to be fast to paint.
2. They need to look great.

These two things aren't always easy to achieve simultaniously, but I think GR and I have found a way to balance it out. First of the 'fast to paint' part is very relative, but we both agree, that as long as this step of the miniature feels like the relaxed part of the painting process, we are close to what we both consider a reasonable time to paint. Secondly we have found that the 'looking good part' comes down to deep shadows and an edge highlight.

The first picture below shows the red cloth without highlights (Except the guy to the left), and the second picture shows the cloth with a fine 'wild rider red' highlight. I think it makes a huge difference. If you look at the guy second from the left, you can see how the orange highlight also helps create the illusion of deeper shadows in the darker parts of the red.

When these guys are done, I plan on doing a metal and cloth tutorial for the Skitarii rangers/vanguard.

Until then I hope you have bought some of these guys for yourself, as they are nothing less than amazing sculpts.

/2.0

More Skitarii - Ave Deus Machina

Hi guys, GR here. As you've probably read from Andreas, he and I have started a joint project - a Skitarii army (which will hopefully evolve into a full blown Mechanicus army, when GW releases a codex).

We're both pretty excited about it, and we seem to have found a common ground in our paint styles - which is pretty cool considering that we normally have very different styles (he paints very cleanly, me being more into gritty, blanchitzuish styles). Anyway, enough with the talk - I'm almost finished with a complete ten man unit of Skitarii (Vanguard? I think?) - I just need to put together the last two guys with the plasma rifle thingies, and get some paint on them. I've also gotten hold of a box of Rust Stalkers, which are some of the coolest models GW has released in a long time imho, and put them together - they are next in the paint line. Without further ado, Skitarii;

I'm really liking the way the red coats and the turquoise glow makes them "pop" on the table - It's a quite simple, but very effective color scheme. We debated doing some freehand on the coats, but decided against it, since it IS an army project - it would be cool on a few models, or even a unit, but 40 skitarii would be too much work.

As always, all comments and critique is appreciated.

Better skitarii ranger picture

Just a quick update with a better picture of a ranger.

I love these models, and they dont take too long to paint. I think I can have my own 20 painted in a months time.

Besides that, GR has almost painted a full unit, so expect to more about this project very soon.

/Andreas 2.0

Time for a change

As a hard-pressed student who spends most of his offtime sleeping or watching series, it can be rather inconvenient to keep a blog up to date. Especially when the other two guys are doing good-quality pictures with fancy effects and a logo, which puts some pressure on me.

Well it is time for a change. I am not going to be concerned with that any longer. If I have the time to take and make a good picture, I will. Otherwise I will still try to post a picture of my work every time there is some progress to show.

Which brings us to this -

I really wanted to add some guardsmen as allies to my space marines (I haven't posted any pics of them yet, but I'll get to that at some point), so I painted these guys. It took alot of time, and after I was done it didn't really seem like a good idea to paint another 50 and some vehicles.

Especially when this guy alone took somewhere close to 2,5 hours to paint -

Even though the guard project was doomed from the beginning, I still got the time to make this fine chicken-thing.

I really like the look of this walker, and it pains me to know, that it will never have friends.

After the dead guard project, I decided to get the new fantasy flight game - Imperial Assault, and paint the miniatures included. The sculpts aren't quite as pretty as one could have hoped, but I still think that they do alot to immerse you in the game. Here is my take on storm troopers and some star wars heroes-

And of course some OSL from the lightsaber -

I am not done with this project yet, and I will post some more pictures when there is progress to show.

The next project I started was actually born from my love of painting banners. I really wanted to freehand something cool and simple, so I bought 10 bloodletters just to get this guy -

The paintjob here is very subtle but it was a great deal of fun to try and get some depth into the khorne symbol, which I think went pretty well.

Finally GR and I decided that we want to do a project together. We have tried this once before and failed miserably, but finally there is a project worth giving it another go. I am sorry for the quality, but take this as a teaser for what is to come!

Lo and behold -

Skitarii Rangers. And a great deal more to come in the next few months.

/Andreas 2.0