Aurelius Legion

Terrain Focus - 40k Craters - Showcase

2012-03-07T23:10:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of the craters with some posed Tactical Marines from my own chapter Aurelius Legion.

Hope you liked them.

Vitor

Terrain Focus - 40k Craters - Finished

2012-03-03T07:09:00.000-08:00

To finish up our craters all we need to do is add a series of washes and some static grass. What I did was to use a heavy base wash of Devland Mud repeated a second time after the first is dry, but this time concentrating on the crater hole and outer ring to emphasise the crater. Next was a wash of Ogryn Flesh in random areas to create some variation. The debris was washed with Badab Black. Last but not least add some grass and you are all done.

Next post I will show some pictures of the craters with some Marines posed to show scale etc.

Vitor

Terrain Focus - 40k Craters - On the Workbench Part 2

2012-02-27T03:50:00.001-08:00

I am painting up my craters to match the way my army is already based but you can try whatever takes your fancy here. Note - if you can use cheaper paints here, do it as terrain eats paint like crazy. I start with a base coat of Chaos Black followed by a layer of Scorched Brown.

Next I overbrush a layer of Bestial Brown.

Next I overbrush a layer of Vermin Brown.

Now a drybrush of Bubonic Brown.

Now a drybrush of Bleached Bone, I repeated this step to get a nice coverage.

Last I painted my debris with Chaos Black followed by a drybrush of Codex Grey.

Not completed yet but it will be in the next part where I finalise all the details to make it look good.

Vitor

Terrain Focus - 40k Craters - On the Workbench Part 1

2012-02-23T00:29:00.000-08:00

Still sticking to my new years resolutions and its nearly the end of February, maybe thats why its freezing in Europe. Back to the subject at hand, 40k Craters and how I make them. This post is the first in a series that will focus on making inexpensive, good looking terrain and hopefully you will have some fun while doing so. It will be called Terrain Focus.

Fisrt off you need a good base, I used what we call here hard board, its about 5mm thick and I cut two pieces as I want one piece for two smaller craters and one piece for a larger crater, the sizes are roughly 13cm x 15cm and 17cm x 16cm. If you want to think ahead you can cut the pieces to the size of your vehicles and use them as destroyed vehicle templates as well.I sketched out a rough design of the sizes of the craters and what I want to add to the scene, rocks, dead tree etc etc.

The next step is to glue in place, I used a hot glue gun, some bits that will form the craters edge, I used some left over high density foam. You could use anything, the idea is for this to add some strength to the craters edge and make it easier to form the shape in the next step. I also placed the twig to get the right size for my dead tree, not glued down as yet.

Now the fun part, take some quick drying polyfiller ( the stuff I use starts hardening within 15 min ), the stuff you use to fill cracks with in walls, then apply the filler to your base and shape accordingly. You will notice that it leaves fantastic grains and rough textures, very battlefield like! Then while its still wet place the rocks, debris, dead trees etc etc so that these items can be fixed in place when the filler dries completely then leave overnight.

Stay tuned for the next part where we will begin painting them up.

Vitor

Blood Angels - Tycho - Completed

2012-02-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

All done, finally! Here is the completed conversion all painted up and ready to succumb to the 'Black Rage'.
I am really happy with the end result and in particular the experiment with painting his face to look like he is wearing a metal mask, idea taken from Ron at From The Warp post here http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/06/adding-detail-to-other-areas-of-your.html

Enjoy the rest of the pictures.

Any comments are welcome.

Vitor

Blood Angels - Tycho - On the Painting Table Part 3

2012-02-15T04:11:00.000-08:00

My plans of finishing Tycho on the week end didn't work out but I did almost get him finished. Above you can see the completed angel on the shoulder pad. I also made a concerted effort to improve my gem painting skills and the gems here are much better compared to the ones I painted on my Sanguinary Guard unit.

Here is the other shoulder pad were I again made more of an effort to have a bigger contrast in the blended red areas, you can actually see the light to dark gradations. My Knights of Blood Terminators in the pictures the blending is non existent, so either my camera skills are improving or my painting is?? I also used a micron pen for the lettering on the seals.

You will have noticed that his head is missing, well I painted that separately and also I was not sure of how I was going to represent his damaged face. One idea was to sculpt the mask on but my greenstuff skills are nowhere near good enough for that. The other idea was to get a head with a metal bionic half and sculpt the hair part on with greenstuff. The third idea came from Ron at FromtheWarp where he painted a tabard out of cardstock to look like leather strips, see link here http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/06/adding-detail-to-other-areas-of-your.html . I decided to try Ron's method and took a normal Blood Angels head and began to paint the mask on the face with a black base coat as I want a metal look to contrast with all the gold on the model. Also I will paint his hair very yellow to match the Blood Angel figure in this picture of the Primarchs at the bottom.

Well that's as far as I got, will complete his head later.

Next post Tycho will be revealed with all his body parts attached.

Vitor

Blood Angels - Tycho - On the Painting Table Part 2

2012-02-10T06:38:00.000-08:00

Did a bit more work on my Tycho conversion and he is starting to look good. I managed to paint up the cloth tabard and the white symbols as well as do more work on the gems.

Here you can see the work on the shoulder pad starting to take shape nicely. Hoping to finish him this weekend so stay tuned.

As always your comments are appreciated.

Vitor.

Blood Angels - Tycho - On the Painting Table

2012-02-05T01:36:00.000-08:00

I did this conversion/kitbash last year for the Miniature Conversion Contest. This year I finally got around to painting him up. I asked readers, in my previous post on Tycho, which armour set they liked more, the Death Company black armour or the gold Sanguinary Guard armour. One response from Snake88's blog said gold so decision made!

I started off with a nice base coat of Tin Bitz, then a dry brush coat of Shining Gold followed by a wash of devland mud in the recesses. The Shoulder pad and angel started off with a base coat of Scab Red, then a coat of Red Gore followed by a wash of Baal Red. The grey areas are Codex Grey. Tycho's combi weapon is Boltgun Metal and the Melta muzzle is Tin Bitz with a coat of Brazen Brass over the top.

Let me know what you think so far.

Vitor

Badab War Minotaurs

2012-01-31T04:20:00.000-08:00

As part of my new years project I ordered some Minotaur shoulder pads from Forgeworld for Xmas and after a couple of weeks nothing had arrived so I contacted Forgeworld who asked that I give it a bit more time, which I did. After another couple of weeks I contacted them again and they very kindly sent me out replacements which arrived within 3 days. So this is a big 'Thank You' to Forgeworld and their outstanding customer service!

Now on to the problem, I am starting off my army with some scouts and wanted some input from you guys out there as to the colour scheme for the scouts clothing, what colour should they be? There is no official scheme as far as I know and the armour will be bronze so need something to go with that. I want to paint the cloaks up in a an urban camoflage scheme probably greys etc.

Looking forward to hearing what you think.

Vitor

Terrain - 40k Ventilator - Completed

2012-01-26T02:26:00.000-08:00

Here it is, all done!!

To complete the weathering and tie the whole piece together I did a final dry brush highlight of Boltgun Metal over the entire model and touched up the other washes here and there.

The finished model came out much better than I expected and I will be making a few more pieces, water tower, fuel station, generator etc etc in the future.

Hope you like the way it came out and hope it inspires all to make some terrain and have fun doing it.

I am hard at work on some other terrain projects, a bit less complicated than this one but I think you will enjoy them, so stay tuned.

Vitor

Terrain - 40k Ventilator - On the Workbench Part 4

2012-01-21T04:17:00.000-08:00

Its starting to look the part now.

In this update I have done most of the weathering and used this opportunity to experiment with mixing my own washes again.

In the previous post I was trying to get the right verdigris look and so had to repaint the brass areas and use the correct mix of wash I ended up with. Cant remember the proportions of paint to water as I just go by 'feel', when I get what I want I usually make a batch and keep it in a spare paint pot for later use.

For the body of the Ventilator I experimented with a rust effect and used Vermin Brown as the colour mixed with water to get a wash like consistency. I applied it liberally to the detailed areas and only in the recesses of the wall sections.

I applied both verdigris and rust washes several times in places to get the right effect I was looking for.

In the next post it will be all finished!! Don't miss it.

Vitor.

Terrain - 40k Ventilator - On the Workbench Part 3

2012-01-17T04:59:00.000-08:00

Progress is slow but sure. I used the same mixture of blue, green and grey but this time I mixed in more grey for the first drybrush highlight of the Ventilator. I also used a stippling effect on the larger wall sections of the body as the drybrushing didn't quite leave the desired effect. I wasn't very worried about being neat here as the metal sections will be done last.

On to the metal sections, I was experimenting here with a verdigris, using Jade Green, wash effect and trying to nail down the correct consistency hence the different effects on the vents. The left one is to light and the right a tad heavy so I ended up using a wash of something in between.

That is as far as I got for now, stay tuned for the rest.

Vitor

Terrain - 40k Ventilator - On the Workbench Part 2

2012-01-14T02:22:00.000-08:00

As I built this based on the Necromunda terrain from Ironhands website mentioned in the previous post I also wanted to paint it up using a similar colour scheme. For the body of the Ventilator I used a mix of blue, green and grey to get a darker turquoise colour. The metal areas like the vents were based with tin bitz.

More to follow shortly.

Vitor

Terrain - 40k Ventilator - On the Workbench

2012-01-10T03:29:00.000-08:00

Well at last I managed to get around to my terrain projects. I came across this amazing site (link http://www.ironhands.com/h2_ven0.htm ) just over a year ago and was just blown away by the awesome terrain he has.

I was very inspired and made this 40k Ventilator out of an old cassette tape and some plastic plumbing elbows, a couple of plastic bottles, some clothes line pegs and a couple of other bits. When I made this a year ago my blog was non existent so there is no stage by stage on the construction. It has sat in my terrain box until now.

New years resolutions and all that, I dug it out and started to paint it up starting with a black base coat.

Aurelius Legion Captain - Improved

2012-01-04T23:38:00.000-08:00

After I did my original post on this guy, I looked at him again and said to myself, there are a few obvious things I can improve on. Firstly I wanted to improve the shading on the underside of the shoulder pads in line with Ron's suggestion at 'From the Warp'. The second big thing was to improve the scrolls, which I did with a micron pen and it came out way better. I also did a few highlights on the banner in red and painted in the armour joints on the arms in metal effect. Overall these few small things made a big improvement to the model.

Here is the old picture above and new picture below for comparison.

What do you think of the improvements?

Vitor

Happy New Year and the Obligatory Resolutions

2012-01-01T02:41:00.000-08:00

First off Happy New year to everyone !! I hope it will be a better year for all of us.

So on to the resolutions, as you can tell from the picture above I think they are easy to make but hard to keep. How many of us have wanted to start new armies in January only to give up by March? I know I have wanted to keep my motivation going earlier this year and that was the main reason for starting this blog six months ago now.

This year I have a few things I want to pursue more :

Commissions - I sold off my Mephiston conversion earlier and I would like to open my self up to taking on commissions. So if you are interested let me know!!!

Terrain !!! I really love making terrain and this year I made a few nice pieces that I wanted to share in a tutorial but have done nothing about it.

Badab War Minotaurs - I put them on hold as I heard earlier in the year that Forge World were making some bits and so they did. I have some shoulder pads on order so when they arrive I will be starting off an army with a tactical squad.

Conversions / Kitbashes - I have a desire to build some more conversions / kitbashes and the Minotaurs have some cool Characters to start with and I want to do some more Blood Angels (my Aurelius Legion Chapter plays with Blood Angels Rules), a new Mephiston, Astotath and some Sanguinary Priests. If I have the time I want to try out a Primarch or two.

So that's my to do list for the first week in January :) see photo

Hope you all have a great 2012

Vitor

Aurelius Legion - Rhino - Finished

2011-12-23T03:36:00.000-08:00

This is it, the final part of painting and weathering my own Space Marine Chapter Rhino. In the last post I completed the bottom section of the Rhino, now it was time to tackle the top section.

I liberally applied the weathering pigment to all the recessed areas where dust and dirt would accumulate. (apologies for the poor close up pictures).

As you can see I found it quite difficult to be neat about applying this stuff. I knew from the lower section that a lot of the pigment was going to be wiped off later so it was not such a big deal.

Now it was time to take my hard stippling brush and remove as much of the pigment as possible. I also used a cloth to wipe away whatever the brush could not get to. I did not use the alcohol to set the pigment as I did not want a repeat of the white frosting situation I encountered on the lower section.

Here are some pictures of the completed model. All in all it came out pretty well. I really like the dusty look of the pigments on the model. One thing to note is that light pigments applied on a light colour that is shaded with a darker colour do not work well (gibberish!!!!!) What I mean is that I found the pigment negated the brown wash I applied to the recesses of my yellow areas on the model.

Hope you like the way it came out and I recommend everyone have a go at this.

Vitor.

Aurelius Legion - Rhino - On the Painting Table - Part Three

2011-12-19T04:26:00.000-08:00

This is where I got to before going on to my experiment with pigments or weathering powders. I ordered some Secret Weapon Pigments and decided to start on the underside and tracks of the Rhino in case things didn't go well, then I would not have to re-paint the whole thing. I must say that I initially got interested in pigments from reading Ron at From the Warp series on the subject, so check his out if you haven't already.

So first off I started to apply the pigment to the underside and came across my first problem, after a couple of dips in the pigment with your brush it flares out and is useless for detailed application. I grabbed my pretty beat up old brush, almost tank brush size, and just got the stuff on there hoping that it would clean up in later stages.

As you can see it was a mess, my next lesson learned was that this stuff is messy!! so make sure you are working on a large sheet of paper to collect all the excess as you can just pour it back into the pot to reuse. Don't touch your face with this stuff on your hands :)

Next step was to take a stiff brush and wipe away all that excess.

As you can see a fair amount was removed with the brush. The next step was to set the pigment with alcohol. I used a local alcohol and applied it liberally.

It worked really well in setting the pigment, in fact it was quite sticky until it dried so be careful not to touch it. The alcohol also, as I was hoping, did tone down the whole effect. The next stage was to then proceed with the bottom of the vehicle and work my way up to the top. I used my large used brush to add pigment to the lower portions around the tracks and the rear and front in a slightly more controlled manner.

The alcohol did its job as expected but with one very strange result, it turned white??? like the frosting you get when spraying a mini with sealant. I think it must be the brand or type of alcohol I am using as this problem does not seem to plague others.Well what to do now?? I pulled out my Black Wash and gave the area a good coverage to see if that would help.

The wash did help a lot, thank goodness. The pictures don't show it as clearly but it removed the frosting look and didn't cover up to much of the pigment.See below for some close ups.

So far the experiment is teaching me loads and is kind of going in the right direction. So last but not least the rest of the Rhino will be done in the next post.

Vitor.

Aurelius Legion - Rhino - On the Painting - Table Part Two

2011-12-15T05:30:00.000-08:00

Managed to get all the painting done on my Rhino but didn't remember to take pictures of the stages duhh! The next phase was to add battle damage and some wear and tear etc. In the above picture you can already see the metal highlighting on the extreme edges of the Rhino.

I added some mud effect by applying paint with a small piece of sponge very lightly to the underside and track areas of the Rhino.

I then went back and did the same again but this time with Boltgun Metal to simulate new scratches etc.

Now all that is left is to try out my newly received pigments!! Stay tuned for the next part.

Vitor

Aurelius Legion - Rhino - On the Painting Table

2011-12-10T00:28:00.000-08:00

My poor Tactical Marines finally got a transport to ride around in. I intend to use this for gaming so didn't bother with the inside of the Rhino when assembling it, the only part that is removable is the Stormbolter on the hatch.

Here I have just started laying down the base colours of my Chapter, very messy at the moment.

More progress to follow soon.

Vitor

Blood Angels - Sanguinary Guard

2011-12-04T03:21:00.000-08:00

When these came out I was amazed by the GW paint job and the models themselves looked awesome! I had to have some, just to paint up if nothing else. When I got my hands on them I was even more amazed at just how detailed they are. I was really looking forward to painting up the detail on the models, all the gems, body armour, shoulder pads and that banner! The only thing I didn't like was the wings so I decided to leave them off on mine.

So off I went and then my enthusiasm was curtailed sharply when I hit my first hurdle which was the gold! I thought I had a fool proof recipe for great looking gold - Tin Bitz base followed by dry brushing highlights of Dwarf Bronze then Shining Gold - it didn't work at all, the lovely detail on the models looked awful! I had to go back and paint in the gold layering style, leaving the previous colour showing in the recesses followed up by lots of washes. That done I thought my problems were over and I could now enjoy painting these guys, wrong!! I started the gems and I struggled to get that 3 layered look on such small sharp edges. I ended up messing on the gold so many times it defies words. I got so frustrated that I ended up just using a Red Ink wash over them to give them that shiny look and moved on. I then thought well I might try a power effect on the weapons as I usually go for the metal look on weapons, I saw a great little tutorial on the look I wanted and tried to follow it, I think it working only reasonably well. I think my state of mind was shot with these guys. I left the banner for last hoping it would be the turning point and up till the gems and scroll it was.

Any good things to say about my experience you might wonder. I learned a lot of things about my painting and hopefully it improved my skills. The angel on the banner came out really well, the shoulder pads did as well. The final gold look also ended up OK. One or two of the power weapons came out the way I wanted them to. So all in all not to bad.

The final thing I can say about this kit is - the best use I got out of them is the ability to kit bash there bits, they have to be one of the best kits for that job, I have seen them nigh everywhere.

So enjoy the rest of the pictures.

Vitor

Creating a Space Marine Chapter - Aurelius Legion Captain

2011-11-25T03:07:00.000-08:00

Here is the final piece of my initial work on creating my own chapter and their colour scheme. I painted up this guy after my two Tactical Squads, Dreadnaught and Terminators but haven't managed to show him yet as I was distracted with my weathering testing which by the way is still on-going and in the not to distant future some posts will go up to show how they turned out.

To recap the paints used are as follows :

Black undercoat.

Armour - Chaos Black with hard edge highlight of Codex Grey with final Ghostly Grey edge.

Shoulder Pads and Arms - base coat of Scorched Brown with several thin coats of Bubonic Brown finished off with a wash, in the recesses only, of Ogryn Flesh .

Cloak / Cape outside - Red Built up from Scab Red to Red Gore with a highlight of Blood Red. washed down with mix of Ogryn Flesh and Devland Mud.

Cloak / Cape inside - I didn't want the stark white and went for a Bleached Bone finish built up over several layers.

I think this is my best work yet and was very happy with the way he turned out. However every time I look at the picture or the model I think I can improve him still. I guess I might go back and improve the shading on the Yellow armour as per Ron's ( From the Warp) suggestions on of these days.

Well enjoy the rest of the pictures and let me know what you think of him.

Vitor

Badab War - Minotaurs - Finished

2011-11-19T02:10:00.000-08:00

Finally all done!!

All I needed to do to the body of the model was finish the writing on the scroll which I did with a micron pen, works great. Added grass to the base then it was only the head left to do.

With the head I tried something new, for me, which was to accomplish a cooler skin tone, usually I go for the browns as bases followed by dwarf flesh and wash with Ogryn Flesh but this time I washed the face with a blueish / purplish wash which I made up from a mix of Asurmen Blue and Baal Red. It was a learning curve for me and I think it would be better next time if I used a grey mix in my skin tones.

Well here are the rest of the pictures. Enjoy!

Vitor

Badab War - Minotaurs - On the Painting Table Part 4

2011-11-13T00:10:00.000-08:00

Well almost done.

To finalize the armour I have washed the Boltgun metal areas with Chaos Black and the Bronze armour with thinned down Thraka Green. The parchment was washed with a thinned down Ogryn Flesh wash. I have also highlighted the red areas with Blood Red.

Now the critical part of the Minotaurs look, the VERDIGRIS. My mix for the verdigris was achieved by using a mix of Thraka Green wash and watered down Jade Green paint. This I applied carefully to the recesses only. I think it came out pretty well.

Hopefully all done by the next post.

Vitor

Badab War - Minotaurs - On the Painting Table Part 3

2011-11-08T02:59:00.000-08:00

Some more progress on my Minotaur Sergeant. I have built up the layers of red with Red Gore, the parchment with Bleached Bone. I highlighted the black of the boltgun with Codex Grey. I have deliberately not painted the boltgun in the Forge World red, bronze and metal scheme as I felt these colours were already to dominant on the model and opted for a muted black and metal scheme. I have also done some work on the base. All in all its coming along nicely.

More soon.

Vitor

Badab War - Minotaurs - On the painting Table Part 2

2011-11-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

I managed to get some more done on my Minotaur Sergeant these last few days. I have started to fill in the other colours with Boltgun Metal for the metal areas like the joints between the armour and the icons. The purity seals I have used a base of Dark Angels Green followed by a highlight of Goblin Green. The parchment is Bubonic Brown over Bestial Brown. The red trim is a base coat of Scab Red.

Let me know what you think so far. Enjoy!

Badab War - Minotaurs - On the Painting Table

2011-10-29T03:58:00.000-07:00

Finally I have got around to painting up my Tactical Marine Sergeant in the livery of the awesome Space Marine Chapter Minotaurs! I really fell in love with this Chapter after reading some of the Forge World Books and then found the Bell of Lost Souls campaign supplement which really brought the modelling and painting possibilities to life for me. I love close combat type armies hence why I play Blood Angels Codex with my own Chapter Aurelius Legion, so the Minotaurs are well up there for me. From a rules point of view who doesn't like preferred enemy : Space Marines!! you will play most games against a Space Marine army as they are the most popular army out there.

Here are some pics of my progress so far

I have painted him up with black primer followed with a watered down coat of chaos black to cover the whole model. The first coat of the bronze is Tin Bitz followed by a dry brush of Brazen Brass then a dry brush of Beaten Copper which I didn't like so I went over it again with a dry brush of Brazen Brass. I toned it all down with a watered down wash of Devland Mud followed by an Ogryn Flesh wash.

Let me know what you guys think.

Vitor

How to Make Green Stuff Press Moulds

2011-10-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

Green Stuff scares me, don't know if any one else feels that way but any thought of sculpting something makes me nervous. I am not very good at it. However I felt that possibly I could manage do replicate the odd piece here and there to customize the look of my army using the press mould technique.

So first off the things you need are the item you wish to replicate, some green stuff and something to act as the mould ( I used a bottle cap in the picture above ). Once you have all the bits, mix your green stuff up 50/50 and fill up the mould, making sure that it will accommodate your bit comfortably, remember the depth as well! I botched the first one because it was to shallow. Now use some baby oil, cooking oil or Vaseline to lubricate the surface of both the green stuff and the bit you are replicating ( not to much to spoil the details ). Push the bit into the green stuff up to the depth you require. Leave to cure. Once cured you can gently remove the bit and voila you should have a reasonable Press Mould.

In this example I used the technique to add a tactical symbol to the shoulder pad.

Here I am taking a mould of the Tactical Icon or Arrow. When the Green stuff has dried remove and you have the mould.

Now roll up some Green stuff the size of the piece you want to replicate, in this case the Tactical icon, place in the desired location and squash your mould onto it. Make sure you don't use to much green stuff or the mould will not fit. After the green stuff has cured remove mould and some touching up will be required to have anything like what you want, in this case I had to sharpen the edges and trim some excess Green Stuff away before I was happy.

Today a Tactical Symbol, tomorrow the world!! Ok just baby steps then..!

Hope you enjoyed the little tutorial.

Vitor

Rules Pertaining to Weapons Choices on Vehicles - My Thoughts

2011-10-23T03:01:00.000-07:00

While I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination with regards to the process of coming up with rules and how GW write codex choices, I do have a couple of suggestions that came to mind as I mulled over my options when writing up my Blood Angels and Space Marines army lists.

One of the first thing that struck me as odd was the choice of vehicles available to Space Marines as opposed to Imperial Guard armies. What I mean is that the Space Marines and all there variants are the Emperors Elite Military Solutions and should have access to the best equipment available.

Case in point :

The troop carrier available to a Space Marine army is the Rhino, armour 11/ 10 capacity/storm bolter armed/1 firing port vehicle for 50 points, the Imperial Guard have the Chimera, armour 12/ 12 capacity/ multi-laser and storm bolter armed/ 5 firing ports and did I mention amphibious for 55 points. Now if I were a Space Marine Chapter Master I would send all available Imperial Guard troops into battle on foot and steal their Chimeras and load my Space Marines into them instead. This does not make sense to me?? I understand the whole each army needs different stuff etc etc but why write up all this Elite fluff and have them riding around in little more than a tin can.

The next and more irritating thing about the way codex's are written up is the weapon options available to you when choosing a vehicle.

Case in point :

The Land Raider, there are 3 variants all armed differently and that's it. Now some of the choices seem odd to me, if I want a tank killing version I go for the bog standard version on offer with Lascannon sponsons and what for a main hull gun a Heavy Bolter???? that's going to kill lots of armour??? The other two variants are less annoying in that they are basically anti infantry.

So whats the solution.

Firstly GW should be more mindful of the fluff they put out about armies and write rules that support that fluff.

Secondly what I would like to see in the codex is, in the case of the Land Raider : you purchase the chassis only for x points then you choose which weapons you want on the thing paying the appropriate cost for each. So if I want that Tank Killer I can have Lascannon Sponsons and Lascannons as the main hull weapon as well. Anti Infantry what about three sets of Hurricane Bolters? or thee sets of Assault Cannons? You see where I am going with this. This can apply to all vehicles even the Dreadnought, start with a basic sarcophagus then add the weapons options you want and pay the points for your choices.

Let me know if you agree with me or give me your thoughts on these two observations.

Vitor

Blood Angels - Tycho - Miniature Conversion

2011-10-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

This was my second option for the recent Miniature Conversion Contest. I entered my Mephiston Conversion but thought I would share this one with you as well.

I saw a conversion of Tycho on Heresy Online which I really liked, especially the pose. So I went about trying to do something similar, pose wise, but different so as not to be a copy.

The conversion uses legs, left arm and torso from the Sanguinary Guard box set with the right leg cut and repositioned with a bit of greenstuff repair to look like he is standing with a leg resting on some terrain. The right arm / power fist or in his case 'Dead Mans Hand' and the head is from the Death Company box set. The combi-melta is a boltgun with the magazine cut off and barrel repositioned to accommodate the melta barrel, the magazine is from the Sanguinary Guard box set again.

I like the way he came out, all I need now is to decide on which colour scheme to paint him up in, Death Company / Sanguinary Guard Gold / Normal Blood Angels Red ???? If you guys want to let me know which scheme you like best I will give that a go and post up the result.

Vitor

Blood Angels Knights of Blood - On the painting Table - Finished

2011-10-15T03:04:00.000-07:00

All done! I finally managed to finish my Knights of Blood Space Hulk Terminators and my Tactical Marine. I love the way they came out and could easily see myself painting up a complete army as I think they will look amazing on the table top as it is a very striking colour scheme. The added bonus is that I don't think there are many armies out there in this scheme.

The final paints I used to complete the models were Blood Red blended with Red Gore on the red areas followed by a wash of Baal Red and Ogryn Flesh. This unfortunately diluted my blending a bit to much. the yellow areas were also washed with thinned down Ogryn Flesh and re highlighted with Bubonic Brown. The gold areas were highlighted up with Shinning Gold and edged with Mithral Silver.

On my Tactical Marine I was happy that my free hand chapter symbol came out reasonably well, also I used a press mould to create the tactical symbol ( arrow ) on the right shoulder pad. I will be doing a short tutorial on how I did this in the near future.

Hope you like them.

Vitor

Blood Angels Knights of Blood - On the Painting Table - Part Two

2011-10-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

I have continued to build up the colours of the models with Red Gore to the red areas of armour then the yellow areas are Bubonic Brown over a Bestial Brown base, the same for the cloth areas with a further coat of Bleached bone, the gold is built up from a Tin Bitz base, Dwarf Bronze then Shining Gold.

More to follow.

Vitor

Aurelius Legion Tactical Marine Weathering Test - Part Two

2011-10-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

Ron at From The Warp was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to give me some ideas on improving the shading on my Marines, see his post here http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/09/hobby-focus-pushing-shadows-to-define.html

Well I took his advice and tried to achieve the look he showed in the picture above.

I used a mix of around 90% scorched brown and 10% chaos black for the shading.

This is not the same model as the original post but a second test I did to see if the weathering effect was going to look good over a series of models.

Another comment that made sense was from Mondel 'GAR' Garcia from the Dread Pirate Garness, that the eyes on the previous model was not up to scratch and detracted from the overall quality of the painting. I must admit that I seem to struggle to get a good paint job on the eyes for some reason???

Let me know what you guys think, is it better or not?

Vitor

Blood Angels Knights of Blood - On the Painting Table

2011-09-30T04:31:00.000-07:00

After painting up my Orks from the AOBR set I wanted to get back to painting Space Marines and as I had some Space Hulk Terminators sitting in my collection box and my cleaned test Tactical Marine handy I set about deciding on a chapter scheme that was Blood Angels ( my favourite ) related.

I know that every time I looked through the Blood Angels Codex my eye fell on the Knights of Blood Chapter, their scheme is a bit different and I like their fluff, once loyal now declared renegade "because of the terrible destruction they wrought against friends and foes alike, yet the Knights of Blood still consider themselves to be loyal to the Emperor of Mankind"extract taken from the Warhammer WIKI.

So it was decided and off I went, undercoating my chosen models in black primer followed by a watered down layer of chaos black paint. I then based the models with sand and did some drybrushing, scorched brown / bestial brown / bubonic brown / bleached bone. I like to almost complete my bases before painting the model it helps me feel like I am getting results fast and I find if I do it last I end up messing up my paint job on the model and I have to go back and try to fix it.

Next I painted the base colours of boltgun metal and scab red on the armour followed by dark angels green and scorched brown on the purity seals.

More to follow. As always appreciate letting me know what you think with a comment.

Vitor

Aurelius Legion Tactical Marine Weathering Test

2011-09-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

Picture courtesy of Ron at From The Warp.

I read this article along with hordes of you I am sure. I am still really trying to master getting a good basic painting technique never mind adding weathering as well. Afterward though I bolstered up my courage and decided to give weathering a try on my test mini.

I don't have any pigments but used washes instead, they don't give that dusty battlefield look but it did add some browning to areas. I also used the sponge technique, seen in From The Warps Tutorial here http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2011/04/different-tools-for-sponge-weathering.html, to apply the random damage, which I am not sure if its too much or ok? I must admit that its harder to do than at first you think, its easy to just paint the entire model in damage if you are not careful. Small dabs with the sponge is the order of the day! Also the order of colour application is important, get the darker colour on first, to represent the older damage, then the lighter and metal colours last, to represent the new battle damage.

Well here are the results and please help me make a decision about them at the end of the post.

I like the end result but I don't know if I like it that much to do over a whole army?

PLEASE HELP !
What do you guys think of the result?
Should I continue with the rest of the army?

Vitor

How to strip paint from a plastic and metal miniature using Dettol

2011-09-19T02:43:00.000-07:00

I have painted over my test mini shown above a few too many times and it was in need of cleaning. I have seen many tutorials on cleaning paint off mini's using 'Simple Green' and 'Dettol' as 'Simple Green' is not available where I live I went for 'Dettol', household antiseptic, which you can get from supermarkets and pharmacies etc. Now I am told you have to use the regular kind as its the one that works, so that's what I bought and had a go at cleaning him up.

To get started take your desired plastic mini, a glass jar with lid and your 'Dettol'. An old toothbrush and toothpick (not shown) is required for the final clean up.

Place mini in jar and pour appropriate amount of 'Dettol' into jar to cover the mini. Seal jar with lid. Now go away and do some stuff, for the whole day or night.

After about 5 hours this is what the mini looked like, sorry for the poor quality picture.

You can see that almost all of the paint has come away from the mini. You can use your brush and toothpick at this stage to help get rid of the stubborn bits. A note here is the paint that comes off turns into a gluey substance and sticks everywhere so be careful. It will clean off with soapy water so don't worry.

After a whole night of soaking and cleaning up with the brush and toothpick and a good wash in warm soapy water, this is the final result.

You can still see some paint on the mini but I can assure you that it is virtually ingrained into the plastic and would not hinder any new painting.

The mini all primed and ready for the next test. here you can see there is no ill effects from the small amount of paint that did not come off from the soaking in 'Dettol'

To clean metal mini's just follow the same procedure. The best part of 'Dettol' is that you can reuse it!

I think it worked even better on the metal mini. It looks brand new.

Hope this helps you out if you ever need to clean a mini in the future. As always leave a comment below with your thoughts.

Vitor

Ork Kommando - How to Make Backpacks !!

2011-09-13T03:53:00.000-07:00

These are the real things from Forgeworld and very nice they are to. However you can make your own pretty cool back packs from very little.

First take some left over greenstuff, or use new if you don't have, and cut into a suitable square shape.

Second take two Space Marine ammo pouches, the large ones and cut one set in half.

Now you need to raid the bits box and for all manner of accessories that you wish to add, here I have a knife/choppa, some space marine grenades and some small ammo pouches. I also used a converted Stikkbomb.

Now start gluing the ammo pouches ( in your desired combination ) onto the greenstuff square.

Next grab all your accessories and have a ball!!

The unpainted backpack in action.

The final product, Ork Kommandos in action!

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and let me know what you think with a comment.

Vitor

Ork Deffkopta - Camo Theme Continuation!

2011-09-08T01:45:00.000-07:00

So my Blood Axes also use both Urban and Jungle camo patterns on their vehicles, land or air. It makes them so much harder to see when fighting against them. Blame Snikrot! He keeps bringing back all those dog tags so we gotta keep up!!

I painted the urban camo using a base of codex grey with the water pattern in regal blue and the dots with skull white. The jungle pattern is painted with a base of bestial brown, water pattern in scorched brown and the dots in bubonic brown.

Hope you like the idea.

Leave a comment below if you do.

Vitor

PS : Next Post - Ork Kommandos - How to Make Backpacks !!

Ork Kommando - How to Make Stikkbombs!!

2011-09-02T03:25:00.000-07:00

These are Stikkbombs that cost money but its easy to make your own from some bits I'm sure everybody has in their bits box.

First take the cylindrical 'thingie' , the excess from the moulding process, from large bases ( Terminator size etc ) which forms the grenade part then for the stick part, I used the bottom of a banner pole in this example, you can also use the handle of swords, choppa's etc. Clean up the cylindrical part, attach the chosen handle and voila!! you have a Stikkbomb.

These are ones I did for my AOBR Ork Kommando conversions.

Hope you enjoy making them.

As always let me know what you think with a comment.

Vitor

PS : Next Post - Ork Deffkopta Camouflage Continuation!

Thank You !!

2011-08-31T02:01:00.000-07:00

I interrupt my usual posting order to celebrate my 50th follower.

This post is dedicated to saying thanks to you for giving me the motivation to come up with stuff every week to add to my blog and my journey through the perils of the warp or make that the wargaming hobby!

I hope that the content of my blog has given you a laugh and possibly some ideas and or inspiration. If not read the stuff again! Lol...

I am going to leave off with some cool 40k artwork. Thanks to all those who produced this artwork. Hope you don't mind me using it:)

Enjoy!!

Vitor

Ork Nobz - You wont see them coming!!

2011-08-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

After having so much fun painting up my Blood Axes in camo it occurred to me that the big boys or Nobz are stronger, tougher and have a few more brain cells and therefore they would use this thing called camouflage that Imperial Guard Troops wear which makes them hard to see and use it to its full potential.

To my Nobz that means wearing as many different types of camo all at once. That way it must be impossible to be seen, right?

Here they are using urban and jungle camo. Had fun just trying all sorts of things, like the tiger stripe urban pattern on the trousers. My favourite is the jungle pattern I came up with here on their shirts.

Some more shots of other patterns.

These Nobz have even gone and painted camo on their shoulder armour plates.

Hope you get the opportunity to paint camo as its fun to do and if you mess up well it might just be the best thing for your scheme!

Leave a comment if you like.

Vitor.

PS : Next Post - Making Stikkbombs for my Kommandos

Waaagh - Da Orks is Koming !!

2011-08-23T01:07:00.000-07:00

The AOBR box set comes with my chosen army, Marines, as well as some nice looking Orks. So it was natural to use Orks as my chapters preferred enemy. My own chapter creation, Aurelius Legion, needed a foe and what better foe to have than a frenzied horde, of not very bright, green skins wanting to separate your body parts into little pieces and send them home to their momma!

After painting up all those marines in power armour I needed a change. I looked at my Orks and thought this could be fun, my chosen clan the Blood Axes have a penchant for wearing camouflage ( kommandos ) so a painting opportunity presented itself.

I love WW2 German uniforms, who doesn't, so went looking for a camo pattern and found this

I simplified my scheme using the above as a guide and painted the pants / trousers of my Orks boys.
I started with a base of scorched brown followed by a coat of bestial brown then I painted in the watermark effect with dark angels green, the dots were completed with bubonic brown and finally a wash of devland mud.

The rest of the models are not finished off to the same standard as my Marines but I only wanted to get them to a tabletop standard and to play with painting camouflage.

Here are a few more pictures.

While I was painting these guys, another idea popped into my head, if you want to know what it was then stay tuned for part 2 where I will show you what I did with the Ork Nobz.

Hope you like the camo, leave a comment please.

Vitor

Next Post : Ork Nobz - You wont see them coming!!

Creating a Space Marine Chapter - Aurelius Legion Dreadnought Fully Painted

2011-08-18T02:24:00.000-07:00

Slight change in the posting schedule, I decided to show the Dreadnought instead as this would then complete the AOBR set i began my journey with.

Here are some more pics for you to enjoy.

I know, the bit of static grass hanging on the back is annoying but I hear it helps with the aiming of enemy troops.

Please let me know what you think with a comment or two.

I think I will show the AOBR Orks in the next post as I used them to experiment with, little conversions and painting camouflage. Also in line with my army fluff it was natural to use Orks as the enemy they were fighting at Blood River as they came together in the same box. So stay tuned.

Vitor

PS : Next Post - AOBR Orks

Creating a Space Marine Chapter - Aurelius Legion Terminator Squad Fully Painted

2011-08-11T07:14:00.000-07:00

Well they are finally here, a fully painted AOBR Terminator Squad in my own chapters colour scheme.

The pictures are unfortunately not the best but they are from a mobile phone so enough of that ENJOY!

Here you can see the detail of the Warhammer Fantasy High Elf shield bit that I cut off and used as an icon.

Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Vitor

PS : Next Post - Aurelius Legion Dreadnought Fully Painted

How to make a cheap and cheerful storage / carry case from cardboard and bubble wrap.

2011-08-05T03:50:00.000-07:00

No that's not it, that's the real thing.

This tutorial is about how to make a cheap and cheerful storage / carry case from cardboard and bubble wrap. If you are like myself and have a limited amount of money to spend on your hobby then check this out.

What you will need, cardboard box, bubble wrap, ruler for measuring, scissors, glue of your choice ( probably not superglue ) and sticky tape. The only thing I paid for was the tape and glue.

First off I drew out a rough idea, with measurements in metric for those of you in the USA, of what I wanted which was a tray that could carry 10 Terminator / Ork size mini's. The first picture is of the base and sides the second of the interior dividers or cross pieces.

Then get out your cardboard box and cut out the shape you drew.

Then cut out the cross pieces and tape up the base and sides to form your box tray.

Next cut out a groove down the center of your cross pieces as they are going to fit into each other like this.

Now you can go ahead and tape up all the sides to make it secure. Also checking the mini will fit.

Grab your bubblewrap and cut out little squares to fit the bottom and sides of the tray.

Mix up your glue, I used plain old PVA, a hot glue gun would be ideal here.

Apply glue to section of tray and fit bubblewrap accordingly.

Keep going until its all done.

Now you can finish it off with some more tape and voila!! a storage tray for next to nothing. Using this method you can make trays for vehicles and any other models you have, just adjust the length, height or width etc.

Hope you can benefit from this tutorial. I had fun making the stuff and I am still making more trays to complete the carry case, which will be just a cardboard box of course.

When I am finished all the trays for my army I will post them up.

Let me know what you think in the comments please.

Vitor.

Creating a Space Marine Chapter - Aurelius Legion Tactical Squad Fully Painted

2011-08-01T04:48:00.000-07:00

Well here we are, a fully painted Tactical Squad.

Just to recap the time frame again. This took me about two months to paint and was painted just over a year and a half ago.

The painting how to is as follows :

Black undercoat.

Armour - Chaos Black with hard edge highlight of Codex Grey.

Shoulder Pads and Arms - Yellow base coat of Scorched Brown with several thin coats of Bubonic Brown finished off with a wash, in the recesses only, of Ogryn Flesh .

Tabard and Aquila of Sergeant - Red Built up from Scab Red to Red Gore with a highlight of Blood Red. washed down with mix of Ogryn Flesh and Devland Mud.

I think they turned out pretty sweet myself but let me know what you think with a comment below.

Vitor

PS : Next Post - Terminators

Creating a Space Marine Chapter - Finally!!

2011-07-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

Ah the sweet taste of victory!

I lovingly took my test Marine into my hands and began to paint the first version of my scheme onto him. Admiring the brush strokes bringing my Chapter to life...two days later I looked proudly at my first recruit with his defiant gaze and ............

HOLD THE PHONE!!!!! it didn't look nearly as good as the 'Bolter and Chainsword' rendition. WTF!!! I was now seriously @#$%^ (enter suitable expletive here). Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to prove it.

After cursing all the known and unknown gods out there I grabbed my recruit and painted his red arm yellow to match the third scheme. I was way beyond caring at this point.

This is him!

Oh how the mighty have fallen, from 'Avenging Eagles' to the 'Order of Navaar' now its bumble bees! Don't say it aloud or you die!

Background change, out with the red arms. Now the black armour symbolizes the mourning for the dead and the yellow/gold arms its rebirth under the dawning sun Victorious!

'The Aurelius Legion' led by Lucius Commander of the Legion and Captain of the first Company.

I hope you enjoyed the ride, it had its ups and downs for sure. In the end I have some very good schemes I might resurrect one day.

If I had to sum up my journey in a few words they would be , Creating a Space Marine Chapter not as easy as it sounds!

So let me know what you think about my final scheme, was it the right choice or did I settle for second best?

Vitor

PS : Next Post - Pictures of the fully painted Tactical Squad

Creating a Space Marine Chapter - The End is Near!

2011-07-22T04:02:00.000-07:00

The end is near! Just one more twist in the tail left. To all those of you that are following this series I wish to explain the time frame involved in this creation of mine. I began the creation of my chapter with the purchase of the AOBR box set about 3 years ago now. Part One of my series took me about a year to get the Tactical Marine (blue and red scheme) squad fully painted, I was still mostly into Warhammer Fantasy at that time. The U-turn followed about two months later, so a year and 10 months ago, with the new red and green scheme shown in my previous post.

Back to the story. After staring at my red and green miniature for a week I just couldn't see my chapter coming together. I was at a loss, should I try another scheme or change the background or just plain use a standard marine chapter? At the end of this agonizing week I decided to do two of the three.

First up, I put My 'Order of Navaar' Chapter on ice. Both the colour scheme and the background, well at least some of the background. I did this because I like what I came up with and perhaps in the future they will take the field ready to purge all the Emperors enemies from the galaxy. For now though they would be placed in deep space hibernation (a storage box).

Secondly I needed a new scheme and a revised background. Since, at that time, I was more into Warhammer Fantasy I thought of how that could maybe help me. I collected an Empire Army and really enjoyed the various colour schemes, heraldry and fluff each province had. I had painted up my Empire Army in the Talabheim red and white scheme (read 10 years ago). Later I was drawn to other Provinces like Nordland with their nautical theme. Another province that caught my eye was the Averland Province with their black and yellow scheme and solar motif.

Of these two Provinces I liked the black and yellow scheme the most and set about creating my Space Marine Chapter using this scheme on the Bolter and Chainsword site.

This is what I came up with.

First scheme.

This scheme has it all, its unique, has one red arm to symbolize the blood spilled, black torso for the new background symbolizing the Chapters mourning the losses of their brothers and now the yellow/gold arm to symbolize the sun rising the next day over a victorious Chapter at the 'Battle of Blood River'.

Finally everything I wanted!

Second scheme.

Here I was playing around with the various colours and looked at the possibility of a robed Marine. Everybody like robes, right?

Third scheme.

Again, just playing around with the scheme to see what it would look like without the red.

Ah the sweet taste of success! I lovingly took my test Marine into my hands and began to paint the first version of my scheme onto him. Admiring the brush strokes bringing my Chapter to life...two days later I looked proudly at my first recruit with his defiant gaze and ............to be continued

Please let me know what you think.

Vitor

PS : Next Up - Creating a Space Marine Chapter - Finally!

Blood Angels - Mephiston - MWC's Miniature Conversion Contest

2011-07-18T02:53:00.000-07:00

Mephiston, the baddest , meanest dude out there!

Here is my entry to the contest.

The conversion / kit bash is as follows.

Robed Body Dark Angels. Grey Knights Medical Vials added to belt as well as Space Marine Grenades.

Arms and Shoulder pads are Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard. Sword arm hand cut and re positioned. Sword is Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard with the pommel guard cut off.

Cloak is from Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves Corsairs, cut to fit and greenstuff to cover gaps (mostly covered by back pack). The Psychic hood is also Dark Elf Corsair cut to fit and greenstuff filling.

The Back Pack is Blood Angels Death Company with the Iron Halo cut from the helmet of a Sanguinary Guard Marine and added on top.

The head is from a Warhammer Fantasy High Elf Mage with greenstuff for neck.

Enjoy and as usual any comments are welcome.

To the artist who did the Mephiston picture I used, its fantastic and I hope you don't mind me using it because I don't know who you are.

Vitor

PS : Next Up - Creating a Space Marine Chapter The End is Near!

Creating a Space Marine Chapter : U-Turn!

2011-07-15T01:38:00.000-07:00

After finishing up my squad of Tactical Marines in my own Chapters, Order of Navaar, blue and red colour scheme I had to take a break, due to real life taking up all my hobby time, for about two months. When I re opened my box containing said Marines and took them out I realized just how similar they were to Crimson Fists. Now I knew the scheme was similar before I started painting them but I thought over the whole squad and army it would be more differentiated. WRONG the bigger the squad/army the more similar they looked.

So what to do now? quite frankly I was a bit annoyed that I spent all that time painting up my squad of Marines for nothing (At least I got some much needed painting experience). I broke out my spare test Marine and thought about the next step. I liked the background I came up with, the red arms coming from the blood in the river etc. Well I could change the blue armour for another colour, how about black to symbolize the heavy losses of the battle? I started to look through the internet to see what other chapters were out there and found this. Marines Exemplar. The exact scheme!!

Very annoying!! this creating your own chapter stuff is more difficult than I thought by far!

I decided to go green, Sons of Medusa style, had a look on the web and didn't come up with anything so I quickly grabbed my spare Marine, just in case anybody got any ideas before me and painted him up in the new scheme to see what it would look like.

Here it is.

I used snot green with a heavy wash of thraka green for the body and the arms were done in scab red and washed with a mix of baal red and devlan mud. I didn't do anything else, I just wanted to see if the look was going to work.

I think it might have promise, maybe a Dark Angels green would be better?

What do you guys think?

Vitor

PS : Next up my entry for the Miniature Wargames Contest

The New Guy - Who cares Anyway?

2011-07-12T02:49:00.000-07:00

I have been reading 40k blogs now for more than two years and I am amazed at the amount of information out there. Whatever it is that you are looking for I am sure you can find it.

There are guys that specialize in news, rumours, painting, sculpting, modelling and terrain to mention a few. I have saved for future use so many tips, hints, tricks that I will be busy for some time if I try and use them all in my hobby.

Now to the point, during these two years or more I have never left a comment! Not a word to say, great thanks for the tip or nice paint job or whatever. I didn't really think the blogger would care either way what I thought or had to say. That is until I started up my own blog, now I am on the other side of the fence and I am so excited when someone takes the time to leave a comment. I am more motivated, feel appreciated. I never understood that when I was just perusing the blogs. I am sure that even well established guys like 'From the Warp' still appreciated comments left after their posts. For us newbies its vital to keep up our motivation and it only takes 30 seconds.

So guys leave comments!

I also want to say thanks to Faeit 212 (kudos to you also for your Monday new blog promotion post) and Black Matt's Black Legion for their help, in the form of a plug on their blogs. Also thanks to everybody, special mention to Ron at From the Warp and Tim at Conflict Valorax, that took the time to leave me an encouraging comment and help out with some ideas to finish off my chapters background.

Its very much appreciated.

Vitor

PS : Next Post - Creating a Space Marine Chapter U-Turn!

Creating your own Space Marine Chapter - End of part 1

2011-07-10T01:54:00.000-07:00

As promised here is the complete, painted Tactical Squad in the colour scheme of The Ordre of Navaar.

In the end the completed squad came out looking pretty good. I hope you enjoy them. (see previous post on how I painted them up).

As usual any comments are appreciated.

Vitor

PS : Next Post - Something different before... Creating your own Space Marine Chapter - Part 2

Order of Navaar

2011-07-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

So after coming across a nifty little tool on the Bolter and Chainsword website, which allows you to paint up a space marine in any colour scheme you wish, I came up with the scheme above.

The red shoulder pads and arms were symbolic of the blood spilled during the 'Battle of Blood River' which turned the water red and the blue is symbolic of the clean water after the carnage had been washed away.

Here is a painted example of a AOBR terminator and a tactical marine (photo take with mobile phone camera).

At the time I was painting these the incredible Blood Angels were not released yet so I was looking for something to use as the symbol? I rummaged through my bits box and found some WH Fantasy High Elf shield bits and cut them up to represent the Eagle Wings seen on the terminator shoulder pad.

I really enjoyed painting up the colour scheme and from a black undercoat I used Ultramarine blue as the base coat and a heavy wash of Asurmen Blue followed by some edge highlighting. For the red I used a base coat of scab red then a layer of red gore, a heavy wash of equal parts devland mud and baal red with a final edge highlight of blood red. I was happy with the result but thought about getting a wet look on the red areas as if the blood it represented was still fresh so I applied a wash of red ink.

Hope you like them, any constructive feedback is welcome, enjoy!

Vitor

PS : Next post - Order of Navaar complete Tactical Squad

Creating a Space Marine Chapter - not as easy as it sounds!

2011-07-06T06:12:00.000-07:00

So I thought I had difficulty deciding which Space Marine Chapter to use from the Space Marine Codex!!

Making up your own is even harder. Where to start, coming up with a name first or colour scheme, how about fluff or tactics or background????????????? jeez man this is not so easy, especially for someone like myself with such limited knowledge of the 40k Universe.

Anyhow, got to start somewhere so I began scribbling down thoughts and ideas as they came to me.

The first idea I had was to have a 'Death from Above' type army, Raven Guard style. I like the Screaming Eagles (101st Airborne) of WW2, parachuting in over hostile ground, outnumbered and outgunned but getting the job done none the less. Their emblem was also pretty cool, an Eagle (very 40k). Now to come up with a name that would encapsulate all this, how about..........

'The Avenging Eagles'
(it sounded pretty good at the time)

Further to the idea was to have the chapter divided into 3 companies instead of the 10 standard ones as per the Codex Astartes. The 3rd Company is made up of the recon element (Scouts) and called the 'Eagles Eyes'. The 2nd Company is made up of the mobility element (All Vehicles) and called the 'Eagles Wings'. The 1st Company is made up of the assault element (All fighting troops) called the 'Eagles Talons'. How it works is as follows, imagine an eagle soaring high in the sky using its Eyes to locate its prey, once located it swoops down for the kill using its Wings and finally crunch!! it sinks its Talons into the poor helpless target and game over. That is the combat doctrine I wanted my chapter to utilize. (Laugh here..)

Now how did these guys originate? well same as everybody else' s home made chapter I came across out there in the web (lol), they are a successor chapter of one of the existing chapters, in my case the Raven Guard. Talk about originality!

The fluff went like this, Raven Guard engaged in brutal war with????????? taking heavy losses and regrouping (you've heard this all before, I know). An unusually brave company captain/sergeant????? calls for volunteers, a suicide mission, from the remaining depleted forces to re-engage the foe and 'Avenge' their fallen brothers. Needless to say the suicidal mission is successful in taking out the enemies command structure and forcing them to retreat giving the Marines the day. This battle is known as 'The Battle of Blood River' due to the nearby river turning red from all the carnage. The Emperor notices this hero and favours him with the creation of a new chapter named in honour of his victory. The captain????? and said surviving volunteers claim the planet???????? as their new 'home world', change their armour to commemorate their fallen brothers and so a new chapter begins.....???

This is still a WIP before anybody gets to excited!

Don't know if all this is feasible, I'm sure you guys will tell me if its not, in the 40k universe but that was the fluff I came up with. If you have any great ideas about what to fill in the ???????? with and how to make it conform to the 40k lore then please let me know.

So where does the Order of Navaar come into it? (if you looked at my last post) keep reading my series to find out.

Vitor

PS : Next post - Order of Navaar colour scheme.

SPACE MARINES RULE!!

2011-07-05T01:46:00.000-07:00

So after unboxing all my lovely shiny new plastic men I poured over the Space Marine Codex relishing the idea of seeing my army in all its painted glory striding across the battlefield laying waste to the traitors of the Imperium.

So many choices...Ultramarines looked good.....Salamanders were cool (or hot)....Raven Guard ( Death from above).......Crimson Fists nice fluff with Pedro Cantor........ohh man to many to choose from. Lucky for me the guy running the one and only hobby store in my area wanted to have some Space Marines painted up, to show off some lesser known chapters, for the store. I guess I was the only one that had the time or more to the point I was the one who needed the painting practice the most so he asked me to paint up two combat squads, one as Iron Hands and one as Storm Lords.

So off I went hoping to not do to much of a bad job and at the same time maybe I would like one of the schemes and start my own army off on a good brush stroke.

So here are some pictures ( from my mobile phone so don't be to harsh) of the Iron Hands, all free hand shoulder pad markings etc which I am sure you can tell.

Then my nightmare painting lesson!!!

White over a black base coat!! Ohh why didn't I buy white primer!! It took about 4 coats of paint to cover the black.

Here are the Storm Lords, all free hand again.

So they might not look so good but in the plastic they looked ok. I was surprised by the Storm Lords colour scheme, over an entire army I think this would look awesome!!

So all this resulted in me saying to myself, self if you cant choose a chapter then make one up, so I did.

Next post : The Order of Navaar

Birth Pangs!!

2011-07-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

The birth of my 40k hobby began with the death, for me anyway, of Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition. While my relationship with Fantasy was more collecting and painting, I did play a few games here and there when time allowed. While the 7th Edition rules weren't perfect at least you could win with a better battle plan. 8th Edition saw randomness increased to a level of absurdity. Now its all about dice rolls and less about strategy!

So while I bemoaned my lot in Warhammer Fantasy I longingly cast my eye at 40k and wondered what it would be like to run around the battlefield in power armour, impervious to harm, slaying my enemies with abandon.

Fortunately for me 5th Edition (40k) had recently been released so I picked up an Assault on Black Reach (AOBR) box set and off I went. I know Games Workshop (GW) has been taking a lot of stick recently over their pricing, resin quality etc etc but I must say that they have it spot on when it comes to starter box sets. If it wasn't for AOBR I might have left the hobby for good.

So with my birth pangs now over I began my journey into the perils of the warp....make that the 40k hobby!!

To blog or not?

2011-07-03T17:58:00.000-07:00

I must admit that I have been a keen follower of fantastic blog sites like 'From The Warp' and 'Bell of Lost Souls'. Hours have been spent drooling over painted miniatures, greenstuff conversions, hobby tips, tutorials etc etc.

To what end I ask myself? I leave those awesome sites fully charged and rearing to dive into my own humble efforts only to find myself running out of steam pretty quickly. So in order to shore up the defenses and avoid being sucked into the warp ( of inactivity ) I have decided to create my own blog hopefully giving myself that commitment to my own hobby and progress.

So whats the MAIN plan of action?

I intend to finish painting, acquiring the missing models and coming up with some fluff for my space marine army, Aurelius Legion (pics to follow).

Make some terrain using all those fantastic ideas I have come across out there.

SECONDARY plan

Paint some of my Fantasy stuff, after all it cant all be about power armour and chainswords, can it?

In the progress of said objective markers, create some tutorials which hopefully will help some one else learn something or at least give them a laugh.

Any ideas, helpful tips are welcome, leave a comment.

Vitor.