An Unforgiven Reborn

[Altered_Soul]

Hello Brothers!

 

After leaving the hobby six years ago to pursue college and subsequently a job, living in three different states (and switching coasts), I found it timely to pick back up some fun things again, and so started learning this modeling and painting process all over again. Being older, wiser, and at least somewhat more patient, my renewed interest was mostly sparked on by my desire to create something, though the gaming won't be far behind.

 

Since I had played Dark Angels in my younger years, I decided to return to my Chapter of choice, as the lore and aesthetics of the Unforgiven still speak to me after all these years. Of course, being not that good at the painting part earlier, I need to start learning again. I am trying to be more astute, open to painting techniques I have no real history of using in any medium. Therefore, I wanted to create this thread to open myself up to any criticism I can get! This WIP thread probably won't have too much in the ways of uniqueness or talent, other than some simple customization as I go along, but I felt sharing my progress would help me to recognize my flaws in my methods and materials, so feel free to help an initiate distill the process to quality work!

 

ADVISORY: Sorry for the mismatched quality of photos, I am not a photographer and my camera is quite temperamental with light sources and its flash, so excuse me for some cruddy shots!

 

So to start with, I went to my local hobby shop and picked up my "first" tactical squad and a spread of paints and brushes.

 

All put together, just the beginning:

 

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/376007770_1298128234_0.jpg

 

If you can spot it, my first marine I put together is quite awkwardly positioned in what I call the "cautious peek" stance. I had much to learn on final positioning, and not gluing the bolter on! I was just excited to put some of the Imperium's finest together. So two of them have bolters glued on, the rest are all being painted in piece.

 

Next up, base coat of spray primer black, and then I painted the obligatory Dark Angels Green basecoat, leaving the recesses (as best I could) black for some depth, as well as leaving anything that wouldn't be DAG black (seals, chest design, other bits):

 

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress008.jpg

 

At this point I also picked up a few more models for myself in my new DA army, a Dark Angels Company Master, and a squad of Terminators. I didn't snap any assembly photos, so here is the earliest shots of them, post priming, and basecoating:

 

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress006.jpg

 

The Company Master I am painting along with the tac squad with the same armor scheme of course, but I will get into the finer details later. I forgot how much of a PITA dealing with metal models is! The Deathwing Terminators were assembled, filed, and spray primed white, and then given a heavily watered down basecoat of Graveyard Earth.

 

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress009.jpg

Focus on the Company Master

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress010.jpg

Ugly looking basecoat! Looks much better in person, but its light for a reason, I hope.

 

By this time, my family had sent me my shelved models from before, and I excitedly opened to the box to a teenagers wasteland of sloppy assembly, poor craftsmanship, and an over-reliance on black ink! Lots of bits broken off here and there, it was a challenge in itself just to organize the remains. There were some surprises though, I had done a decent job on the Ravenwing Land Speeder, and the painted Rhino was in great condition to just touch up upon. Most of everything else was crying for mercy though, especially the tac squads and old school terminators. A few pics of the great "Bolstering of Forces":

 

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress001.jpg

 

If you look closely, you will see MK1 Rhinos, an MK2 Whirlwind, and a terrible imitation of a Vindicator (which was quickly removed and converted back into a Rhino), along with a Chaos Bike (I had to laugh at my desperation and broke-ness in highschool, WYSIWYG was loosely applied in our games back then).

 

I now had, in addition to my recent purchases above, two more Tactical Squads, 1 more Terminator squad (old school plastic), 5 model Assault Squad (with a cool dual pistol conversion that I will show later, broken at this time the picture was taken), 7 man Scout Squad, Azrael (sans Watcher, helmet bearer, funny story), 2 MK1 Rhinos, an MK2 Whirlwind, Two bikers, a Bike Chaplain, and a Landspeeder. And lots of bits.

 

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress003.jpg

Oh my how you've grown! Going to have to fix that.

 

So the old tac squads and termies took quite the long dunk in a vat of Simple Green. And boy, does old paint and primer stick, because it took forver just to get the damn models down to this point of un-paintedness:

 

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress2001.jpg

 

Broke off the old bases, scrubbed them down best I could to a point where a new primer coat would cover a decent amount, but they will never be as detailed as they would be new. A test primer on a particularly unclean model and it turned out better than I had hoped, so I gave up on doing another dunk (I guess I am just lazy).

 

While waiting for the old stuff to get cleaned up, I applied my first highlight to the new Tac squad and Company Master. It was a simple mix of 4:1 DAG to Sunburt Yellow, watered down a little. I think I could have stood to water down the mix a little more, and been a little more conservative on thickness, yeah? At this point I also basecoated the chest eagle's Bestial Brown, and gave the bolter casings a white undercoat, along with any other weapon casings, the sergeant's head, and the eye's. You can see this stage somewhat in the big group photo above, but I didn't get any snaps at this point.

 

From here, I have gotten the first coat of Blood Red on the casings of weapons, and over the eyes of the tac squad and the Company Master. The white on the Power Sword is due to my plan to make a very vibrant color shift from the hilt onwards, we will see how that works! After putting the coat of Blood Red on, I don't like how bright it starts out, as I am going for the jewel look, and the white basecoat made it stand out much more than I desired it to, so I am going to redo that in Scab Red at some point, and start from there.

 

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress2004.jpg

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress2007.jpg

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress2028.jpg

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress2027.jpg

 

Current state of the Company Master, which head pose looks cooler you think?:

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress2017.jpg

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress2018.jpg

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress2025.jpg

 

As for the Termies, I applied a nice wash of Brown Wash to get in all the recesses:

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff81/Altered_Soul/Warhammer%2040k/Warhammer40kProgress2012.jpg

 

That's where I am at now, second highlights and details to come soon, hopefully!

 

The plan is to add more highlights and detail to the newest Marines, give the Termies a Bleached Bone basecoat, and start cleaning, reassembling, and priming the old stuff. I also want to shore up the height and base difference of the Termies, and create a replacement Lion's Helm for Azrael.

 

Thanks for bearing with a neophyte to the hobby (again), and I hope some of you can help me with some tips, tools, and methods!

 

Altered_Soul

[AnDyzZzoRe]

Well its always good to see another Dark Angels player! Welcome back to the hobby.

As to advice. Well the terminators are looking a bit brown, but as you said you will base them bone I am looking forward to seeing them painted.

With the tactical squad and the captain, the chest eagles are looking a bit flat. colouring them a lighter bone colour, then washing them with the brown GW ink, and then doing highlights with bone, and then white is simple but looks good.

 

Looking forward to seeing this progress.

[AnDyzZzoRe]

Well its always good to see another Dark Angels player! Welcome back to the hobby.

As to advice. Well the terminators are looking a bit brown, but as you said you will base them bone I am looking forward to seeing them painted.

With the tactical squad and the captain, the chest eagles are looking a bit flat. colouring them a lighter bone colour, then washing them with the brown GW ink, and then doing highlights with bone, and then white is simple but looks good.

 

Looking forward to seeing this progress.

[Altered_Soul]

Well its always good to see another Dark Angels player! Welcome back to the hobby.

As to advice. Well the terminators are looking a bit brown, but as you said you will base them bone I am looking forward to seeing them painted.

With the tactical squad and the captain, the chest eagles are looking a bit flat. colouring them a lighter bone colour, then washing them with the brown GW ink, and then doing highlights with bone, and then white is simple but looks good.

 

Looking forward to seeing this progress.

 

Thanks! The current plan is to use the bleached bone color on the chest eagles, as well as adding Boltgun to all the metal parts. I have yet to do my final highlight, since I have been focused on a licensing exam (that is on Saturday!), so once I am clear of that wonderful part of life, I will sit down earnestly and do that. I keep getting myself distracted on other units and cleaning up the old stuff and such, so I am going to dedicate myself to "finishing" those tac squads. Hopefully I will have some progress pics this time next week!