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Sons of the Serpent


Ap0k

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A little something I've been working on to distract me from the fact my Chaos army has ground to a halt :D

 

I'd wanted to try a splitscheme green/green for a while, since I've been doing a lot of work with red recently, so this guy gave me the excuse to do that and try and figure out what I'm doing with battle damage and weathering, since I've never really put much effort into them before, as well as play with more directional lighting effects.

 

The idea is that he's not a fancy pristine marine straight into the combat under perfect photography lighting, but someone who's been kicking faces in for a week with just about every available part of his body.

 

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/9261/sotsfin1ba1.jpg

http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/4088/sotsfin2ne9.jpg

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/9826/sotsfin3la5.jpg

 

Would love some feedback on what I can improve on in the future :mellow:

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It looks great. I've never been a big fan of the belt-fed bolt pistols (seems like they would jam with all that dirt) but that is a personal prefrance and aside from that he looks fantastic. I've never been real successful pulling off the worn and battle damaged look but it came out very good here.

I love everything about this guy except the purple skulls and purple on the belt feed. I like the purple on the BP casing, that works for me but I'm not a fan of it on the skulls, the backpack one has a nice 'amethyst' gem-like feel to it, but still it just doesn't seem quite right to me. The purple belt feed just seems odd, it's such a functional item that having it in a sort of fancy, non-functional colour doesn't sit well with me either.

 

That aside though, the battle damage is excellent, quality gore-effects too and the painting itself superb :B

This model just feels right.

Just seeing those words has made my day, since that's all I was hoping for in the model. I've done a lot of factory clean, pristine stuff, and while they'd turned out pretty well (in my opinion), I'd always been a bit ambivalent about the fact that stuff in a 'real' world just doesn't look like that. They fight for weeks on end and beat the crap out of stuff. They're going to be covered in gore and all manner of filth. I figured it was about time I tried to represent that, so seeing a comment like that basically nail what I was aiming for is really cool, and I appreciate it (I appreciate everyones comments, but tortoise just managed to inadvertently completely nail what I was trying to do).

 

On the rest of the responses, the belt-fed bolt pistol was only used because I'd run out of loyalist ones in my bits bag :( I think it lends a bit of movement to the model, so it's not all bad, but I'd have preferred a clip based on myself.

 

As far as the gems go, it's something I was in two minds about as well. I figured I could either stick with my limited colour range and go for gems, or make a complete break from the rest of the model and run with bone or grey. Ultimately I thought the gems would tie in better with the colourscheme, as well as add a bit of spice to things, since most people paint them the stereotypical colours. When I experiment I tend to really experiment ;)

 

Carbon based, yes, all the battle damage is painted on. The pre-weathering/damage shots look like this:

 

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/6855/sots1mm4.jpg

 

 

On the blood front, I tend to just swish colour around until it looks about right. Dried blood is darker than fresh stuff, so I probably used some red gore/dark flesh/black or something for the deepest splashes, and worked up to pure red gore for the more recent stuff. Really fresh stuff gets a generous helping of Tamiya Clear Red, which is like a goopy transparent red colour and is really awesome for blood effects.

 

I'll see what i can do about getting some bigger pics and/or close-ups on bits and pieces as requested. Thanks for all your comments guys :P

The battle damage was just done in the stages it would have 'happened in'. I basically sat down and made a quick list of what had happened him since he dropped in, what kind of dirt/damage that would have created, and then did it all to the model in the order it was written down (which resulted in some later steps covering earlier steps, but I guess that's what would actually happen).

 

The dust and grime was basically thin layers of Shadow Grey, built up through various stages of damage, allowing it to pool slightly in the recesses. I finished the dust with some very light, thin layers of Fortress Grey to give the impression of slightly drier, more recent stuff.

 

Chipping was just a fine line of black, followed by a fine line of Calthan Brown (leaving a very fine edge of black), and then a highlight line on the 'lip' that would be catching the light, and a slightly watered down line of black on the part that wouldn't be getting the light. The highlight line is basically a much lighter colour of whatever colour of surface you're working on. I had to work with various mixees of camo green/catachan green and white in order to bring it up light enough to look like a highlight.

 

On top of this, there are a few blobs of thinned down black/brown just kind of dabbed onto the model to represent oil stains or other grimyness. Most of those stains are very faint, since the purpose was to make it look like it had worn or been brushed off over time.

 

That's basically about it really. Each of those stages were done at varying points, and repeating at varying points, depending on when he jumped in mud or when and where the grenade exploded beside him or whatever, so it all just kind of built up in a timeline of events.

Which head did you use though, it fits awesomely!

Oops, missed this one on my last pass through.

 

It's the bare head from the Chaos Termy Lord :( It comes with a nice grimace that none of the marine ones seem to have (or at least, none that I have in my bitz box).

I am in awe of your work. It reminds me of the Gothic terminator I saw online. You are so far beyond painting miniatures and into artwork it is just wonderful. I tried battle damage on a land speeder I just painted and did the old black with m silver. I think I may have to go back and give your technique a shot. Though you are leagues away in terms of skill! Awesome job!

This is really nice, hopefully someone does nice work for the new B&C contest. I'm entering an Ork but I think he'll have some battle damage and blood. Tamiya clear is really nice for blood. I've been expirementing with Lone Wolf style but I seem to do it a bit different.

 

I wanna try those weathering powders the historical guys use, gotta order some from the War Store or something...

Ordinarily I'm in the "a little battle damage goes a long way" camp but this figure works for me somehow even with the tremendous amount of blood, dirt, scratches, chips, etc... He gives the feel of a marine who is in the middle of the battle and hasn't given any thought as to whether he'll survive long enough to get his armor cleaned up (to avoid angering the armor's spirit). Kudos.

 

I have to disagree with the comments regarding the purple items in the color scheme. I think it sets off the green nicely.

 

Being a DIY geek I do have one nit to pick. Do you have any pics that show the chapter symbol?

I took some quick pics the other day of the shoulder pad and shadowed side, but forgot to post them. Hopefully that'll satisfy your insatiable lust for chapter symbols st.germaine :)

 

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/1412/shoulderpadkv4.jpg

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/5430/sidebu7.jpg

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