Quiarcus's WiP

[Quiarcus]

Nearly forgot; I managed to finish Archaon, well, for the time being at least. He has a temporary base until such time as I can get hold of some materials to make something more scenic. Would love to do a kind of glacial effect, but not sure how to go about it and don't have ready access to materials to experiment with. Oh well. Let me know what you think:

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*photoshop has been used to remove the background and insert gradient effect. Colours are as taken by the camera.

 

[Quiarcus]

Dark Vengeance

Well, received my copy of Dark Vengeance. Have to say, for plastics they are pretty impressive and easy to work with.

I've finished one figure to a table top standard and have started work on one of the cultist groups:

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The marines are done in the colours of my own chapter, which fortuitously happen to be founded from the Dark Angels geneseed, so the iconography etc. is in keeping. I feel sorry for anyone who wants to paint these fella's in a different colour scheme - all the badges etc. are moulded so will require a lot of work removing. All in all I'm reasonably happy with how he turned out, though I think I may have to repaint the sword - it looks okay in real life but I feel that I can do better.

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Only just started work on these guys. The skin is done for the time being and I'm starting work on the clothing etc. Currently focusing on the four ex-guard looking models as they should be quite uniform to complete.

Anyway, comments and constructive criticisms welcome!

 

[johnny889]

will be interesting to see how the cultists go, mine are still on sprues! might do the chaos marines first though, depends how your cultists come out

 

[Quiarcus]

Traitor Guard

Made a little bit of progress with these fella's, though not had much time to paint. Personally I like the way they're going, but I think maybe I could do with increasing the contrast; what do others think? It's something I seem to have a lot of problems with in the past, my miniatures tend to turn out a little flat - anyone have any suggestions on how to combat that?

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Again, comments and criticism welcome!

@Johnny889: Yeah, I really like the CSM in the box but felt that I would have more incentive to do the cultists if I kept the marines until after I'd finished both cultist groups; same goes for the Hellbrute and the lord.

 

[Pirexian]

Did you paint the DA captain as a Blood angel? I collect blood angels, and I was wondering about the dark vengance minis, Probably the captain, chaplin and librarian could be easly converted into other Space marine chapter minis. Nice stuff mate.

 

[Quiarcus]

@Pirexian: Hey Pirexian, thanks for the compliment. As for the minis, the captain isn't too bad - his shoulder pad is largely unadorned other than for the front wing. The librarian has a large winged sword combo on his shoulder and I believe that the chaplain is the same. Don't have access to the mini's at the moment but when I do I'll post some pics of their shoulder pads for you. I actually painted the captain as my own chapter 'The Sons of Oros'; they have red body armour but bone coloured greaves and shoulders. They are a subsidiary chapter of the Dark Angels so the new box is somewhat of a blessing for me .

 

[Quiarcus]

As you can see from the pics, the librarian and the chaplain have some pretty obvious DA iconography. The tac marines are still on the sprue at the moment, but they would be a little harder to modify. The DA icon on the shoulder spreads fully across - the wing tips are actually moulded onto the hem of the shoulder pad - and the sword tip goes down into the bottom hem. To remove it all you'd have to file and the dig into the shoulder pad I'd imagine - though a little bit of creative putty work may be able to transform the swords into droplets.

 

[Quiarcus]

Traitor Guard

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Well, put the finishing touches to these guys last night. I really wish I hadn't as I made a lot of sloppy brush strokes in the poor light and the metals have turned out far worse than I had hoped. Oh well, you live and learn I suppose! Still, given that I really enjoyed painting these miniatures - they have quite a deal of detail and character for standard troops and I tried colours that I usually stay clear of. In fact, the pink/purple collar was done in response to a jibe from my wife over my typically restrained palette use, and I think it has worked reasonably well. Six more miniatures to finish in this group and then I'll do the Chaos Lord I think, or maybe the librarian as I've made a start on him already.

As an aside, I'm interested in doing TMM, specifically aged bronze; any suggestions?

 

[boubi]

Hey, they look good. But the picture can be improved, the background is too bright then the mini are too dark!
Good lighting for painting is a must, first for your health, then for a good paint job. Spending some money into a good lighting is really necessary, you can check on Taobao
Then you can use these light to take better pictures.
For your TMM you can try Warplock bronze for base then some balthasar gold for highlight, Devlan mud for glaze shadows, then a wash of verdigris for old oxidized bronze in the recess parts. I never tried, but I would have used this recipe to try first...

 

[Durandal]

The pink is a little too saturated for me, but they've come out nice and consistent, just like you planned. That captain further up is great as well, though I agree with you on the sword. It just looks a tad dull, I guess.

 

[Quiarcus]

Hey, they look good. But the picture can be improved, the background is too bright then the mini are too dark!
Good lighting for painting is a must, first for your health, then for a good paint job. Spending some money into a good lighting is really necessary, you can check on Taobao
Then you can use these light to take better pictures.
For your TMM you can try Warplock bronze for base then some balthasar gold for highlight, Devlan mud for glaze shadows, then a wash of verdigris for old oxidized bronze in the recess parts. I never tried, but I would have used this recipe to try first...

Cheers again for the advice Boubi! The pics are bad this time I know - I really need to setup a lighting rig of some kind. I'll post better pictures once the others have been completed. Plus, not sure my wife would be impressed with me spending yet more money on miniature related items at the moment

@Durandal: I'm really not sure what to do with the captain's sword at the moment - I'm not a great believer in these fancy blue etc. sword you see (except for where force sword or daemon blades are concerned), but I am adamant that I can make it more interesting somehow. Have to study up on TMM as some of the results I've seen using this technique look quite good even with simple designs.

 

[Durandal]

You could do a bronze or silver sort of thing. Some black/navy blue gradient might also look good (there's a good picture of the Terminator Captain in the back of the codex with that kind of effect), which apart from some highlights isn't an ostentatious color.

 

[Quiarcus]

Hmm, I'm trying to keep the bronze colours to the chaos forces, but a cleaner bronze may work, or maybe even a bright copper sort of colour. As for the terminator captain, which Codex are you referring to? I had a quick flick through the SM one (5th ed.) and couldn't see the model. Thanks for the comments though, that sword has been driving me nuts!

 

[Quiarcus]

Dark Vengeance Sprue

To those wondering about the DV sprue and how convertible the models are; I've taken a snap shot of part of the Dark Angels sprue. Hope it sheds some light on the shoulder pads.

 

[boubi]

Plus, not sure my wife would be impressed with me spending yet more money on miniature related items at the moment

This is a constant problem... Same here, but recently she just gave up telling me, I think she saw that I enjoyed doing it and it is still a cheap hobby compared to many others! But I still didn't tell her that a certain Reaper Kickstarter might come in March. Let's say that it will be a surprise and a Chinese New Year gift, it might work!

 

[Durandal]

Hmm, I'm trying to keep the bronze colours to the chaos forces, but a cleaner bronze may work, or maybe even a bright copper sort of colour. As for the terminator captain, which Codex are you referring to? I had a quick flick through the SM one (5th ed.) and couldn't see the model. Thanks for the comments though, that sword has been driving me nuts!

The Dark Angels Codex, obviously! It is pretty much dark navy blue/black except for a few "bolts" of lighter blue.

 

[Quiarcus]

The Dark Angels Codex, obviously! It is pretty much dark navy blue/black except for a few "bolts" of lighter blue.

*Hangs head in shame* Doh! Yes, having looked in the right book *ahem* I see the one you're on about. Looks quite good, will give it a go; thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Quiarcus]

Dark Vengeance

Another one done. Done to about tabletop quality (I hope!). Better pictures will be forthcoming once I get the last five from the squad done.

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Another fun mini to paint; looking at the photo I have some touching up to do in places, but for now I'm reasonably happy with the outcome.

 

[Quiarcus]

Dark Vengeance: Chaos Cultists

Well, after a short break due to work, managed to get the cultists finished! I think it's the first unit I've completed in about 12 years Better pics will follow once I've set up some kind of lighting rig.

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Above are the last five I had to finish - not entirely happy with the two not wearing shirts and may go back and tweak them later. This was my first attempt at doing rust in a more TMM manner (you can see the old way of doing it also displayed) and I'm quite pleased with the results, especially on the flamer unit.

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And the completed unit -I think they've come out quite well all things considered; they really are quite fun to paint, if a little repetitious at times. I think I've learnt a few things through the painting of these pieces and look forward to the next unit!

 

[boubi]

Well done! Nice and homogene unit!