Silver Skulls Test Mini WIP

[Marius Perdo]

Well, third time lucky they say.

I intend to get at least a battle company of Silver Skulls done, after many false starts. Going with 3rd Company to use red squad symbols, so it is a spot colour that compliments lenses and optics. My enthusiasm has been re-kindled by the new Forge World resin minis, so I have a load of those in boxes to paint as well as a Caestus.

This is a test mini WIP, that is going better than expected, so I'll probably end up using this guy as the Veteran Sergeant from the 1st company seconded to the 1st tactical squad. I intend for all the sergeants to be metal minis, utilising kit bashed/converted older sergeants/veterans that aren't much use as sternguard or vanguard these days.

Still needs the black parts doing (gun case, shoulder pads, armour joints), the laurel wreath, the leather gun strap, and red on lenses and purity seals. I'm going to do script on all scrolls and purity seals (to represent portents specific to that marine as forseen by the Company Prognosticator). The theme is the five companies deployed into the ruins of Hades Hive during the 3rd Armageddon War, so I will be trying to do battle damage (dark metallics do not lend themselves well to this so experiments continue on old battle for Macragge minis) as well as weathering powders (to represent soot and ash waste dust).

Once I'm happy with the palette I'll start cranking them out and start a Blog or Project Log thread.

[Gothical]

Looks good so far - you've identified that you need to do the black etc.

 

I'm not too keen on the scheme because it's so dark - though I recall in the original 3rd Edition Space Marine Codex there were some Silver Skulls where the central sections on the shoulder pads were painted in a dark blue (think: Midnight blue, not Ultramarine) - it's the pic of a small squad, (iirc) a razorback near a wreck.

 

It might just be something you want to think about to give the model a little more colour - but if you're happy with the scheme as it is, then that's cool too.

 

As for the battle damage, it may be worth doing it in tin bitz/scorched brown as it should be different enough to stand out from the silver (this is a WIP experiment on my Salamanders):

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a33/Treadhead2005/Space%20Marines%20-%20Salamanders/IMG_0728.jpg

[GAR]

Red looks good with the darker metallic. On my guys I kept the palette simple all the other colors would not overpower the metallics. For mine I primarily used Red, blue, Pig iron and Mithril silver.

 

Don't give up brother, there are far too few Silver Skull players. :rolleyes:

[Marius Perdo]

@IC Adam: the dark base metal is on purpose. I'm trying to stay true to the main rulebook and Codex, as well as paying lip service to the very dark and gritty look they had in WD for the Armageddon War. It's Boltgun Metal with Badab Black wash, followed by a watered down Leviathan Purple wash, then edge highlights with Mithril Silver. Got that one from the WD painting article on Legion of the Damned. I also want to capture the grittiness of what the fighting must have been like in the ruins of Hades Hive after Rokdroppa flattened it, thus the interest in weathering and damage.

 

I'd tried Chaos Black/Boltgun metal for damage, using sponges. Tried Mithril Silver direct as scratches. Both just looked like I'd messed up my base coat or highlighting. I'd tried various greys, first dark and then light to try and contrast. Again it looked crap :(

 

The Tin Bitz/Scorched Brown sounds interesting, I'll defenitely give it a go, thanks for the tip mate :)

 

As for the black it is 50/50 Chaos Black/Regal Blue at the moment. I'll be highlighting up from there towards Fortress Grey. The blue tint was inded a homage back to the Silver Skulls minis in the 3rd edition Codex, just as the deep brass is homage to the boltguns metal components from the same codex. We've both been paying marines for too long it seems :)

 

@GAR: the red is working but I feel not enough of it is present to really be a spot colour at this stage. I may do a red skull transfer somewhere, and maybe a freehand upward pointing tactical arrow on the right knee. The risk is overdoing it of course :) The problem will be when I do my speeders and bikes, as these will be 8th company and I'll lose my nice contrasting red spot colour.

 

The left knee will have a black roman numeral one (I) transfer for the squad number. I'll need to get some MiG weathering powder fixative before I start messing about with weathering via dust. I won't use the varnish sprays, matt kills metal paint shine dead (had this happen on old Silver Skulls) and gloss just makes it look slimey.

 

Generally having fun playing about with different ideas, and thus far he is still pefectly usable for the table. Any more paint layers and he won't be, no matter how carefully I water the coats down :) Thanks for the feedback, he'll probably be done soon enough, I seem to have learnt what I need to do with the basic paint job to get the effect I wanted.

 

I may just crack on and leave weathering until later and do them squad by squad, as he has nine base coloured brothers, with some toting some new FW weapons and armour parts, that need doing.

[GAR]

What I am getting at is on this mini you have a lot of color going on.

 

There is what looks like gold or bone, green, red, black, dark and light metallics. Its a;lot of color on a figure.

 

I recommend reducing it to fewer colors. It helps balance the figure because there is not so much going on for the eye to focus on. It will seem less busy, visually.

 

I like P3 black or armor wash, its much darker than GW badab black and has much better coverage. That should help quite a bit with the dark metallic and it is easily found online.

 

Be careful with roman numerals on the knee. Metallics make this look weird. I would use company color or white on the knee pad and then do the roman numeral. It will show up better. I learned this on my own figures.

 

I don't want to seem like I am pushing for your SS to look like mine, just a bit of adviser based on what I see is all.

[Razhbad]

Just curious have any of you lot heard about all the new Silver Skull stuff coming up

[Rogan]

Looks fine so far!

But your final highlights could be somewhat stronger - and don't you forget about the blue boltguns ;-)

Aside from that, if I'm not mistaken, your chapter insignia are in a dull grey. What about some pure white highlights to gie them some more depth?

And have a look at this "How to paint Space Marine eyes"-tutorial. These of course aren't the best lenses I've ever seen, but they're okay. Well, my Ultramarines seem to have little to no eyes at all, but I'd swear this is just because of my lousy skills as a photographer. *cough*

 

@ Interrogator-Chaplain Adam:

Nice damage! I took it for "real" damage, i.e. I thought you carved it into the legs... Well done!

[Marius Perdo]

Finished off testing by doing the last of the colours, so the mini has done what I wanted it to...which is let me play about with the palette that was in my head ;) The weathering can wait as it is something I can apply whenever. I am considering hand painting a black laurel wreath on the helm, script on the seals, and possibly a red tactical arrow on the right knee but they can wait for now.

It is best to not trust the pictures too much as I've not had good natural light for a quite a few days now, it has been raining for days, so the pictures look quite a bit darker than the actually are (the mini is still a dark palette though, which is deliberate).

@Rogan: the chapter symbol is actually painted Mithril Silver. I used Dracul's image from this site and got some printer decal paper. I then painted the silver by hand onto the transfers after sealing them with varnish. They are actually very silvery, it just doesn't show up on very well on the piccy.

The blue boltgun casings are 3rd edition SM codex, which I personally don't like. There have been better images of Silver Skulls since (IMO) with black casings, particularly in the Armageddon 3rd war, which I am going to use these for. Most importantly for me I prefer black, but I've still used blue tones for highlighting the black, just like I've used a dark brass as opposed to gold for the Imperialis on the shoulder (as well as the Iron Skulls), to pay homage/lip service to the old scheme as opposed to adhering to it. For me its time has long past and is about as relevant as page 169 of Rogue Trader ;) Personal (and temporal) taste I guess.

@GAR: the palette is a little bit broader than the original ones I did a year ago, which had a lot more chainmail pipes/skulls etc. For me though my original palette looked very drab and monochrome, especially against armour that was mostly Boltgun Metal. For me the Leviathan Purple wash has helped differentiate the armour from the helm, pipes, and storm bolter. The miniature is basically just Boltgun Metal, Chainmail, and Mithril Silver, with a little bit of black and red and a vairety of washes. Regards many colours, well that is also down to the specific mini, which is why I chose to start on it rather than some old plastic mini.

The laurel wreath is green as from a codex point of view they usually are in pictures, although some are gold or silver on minis. Wreaths also appear very rarely on minis anyway, so there won't be much green in my army. I'd tried it on other minis in the past in metallics or black and it looked crap. Apart from the occasional gold one, which I did consider but with a gold crux in the middle it didn't look great, more one honour as opposed to two seperate ones. Mind you if the four knuckle skulls weren't there in silver a silver wreath (in the same style as the helm) might look good. I think wreath colours will now be dependant on what is positioned next to them on the miniature :) The same is true for the Imperialis and Iron Skulls etc in the deep brazen gold, they aren't common on most minis and tend to be ornate when sculpted (according to the old WDs I have artificers tend to plate such parts of armour in precious metals, and I wanted something to contrast to the steels and silvers).

So whilst there is a little bit more going on colour wise on this specific mini, that was intentional to try out all aspects of the entire palette (base plus optional bits) for the army entire, including character models etc. Most of my minis don't have such extras present on them so only the very few that have sculted laurel wreaths will have them in green if next to a gold eagle/crux etc (or brass/gold if stand alone), although I will probably do all boltgun eagles in the brass/gold colour. It does mean a base tactical marine will be a lot plainer.

When I do the roman numeral for squad numbers on the knee I tend to "lighten" the knee with a little bit of Chainmail. It lets the numeral show up but most folks don't notice you've brightened the knee. I know what you mean though, against Boltgun metal they tend to disappear completely otherwise.

@IC Adam: I'm still messing about, I found using your colours made it look like I'd messed up painting the eagles/skulls i.e. I'd gone outside the lines. It looked like a mistake as opposed to damage. I think it is a limitation of having such a dark metal for the base coat which I am just going to have to live with :( Thanks for the suggestion but I'll have to put my faith in powders for weathering, painted battle damage is not working no matter what I try.

Anyway, thanks for the opinions. Whilst I won't act on them, as I am happy with the results of the experiment, they have been very helpful as it means I achieved what I wanted which was:

1) A darker palette with some contrasting colours - some folks have said it looks too dark, but others have suggested more colours, but it means they probably are darker (lack of photopgraphy lighting aside) which is what I wanted :)

2) A broader army wide palette with some optional colours (brassy gold being the main one) - some find him visually busy which means I have enough of a base palette with optional colours to do the entire army - result! Just what I wanted :)

Anyway, mission accomplished so on to the rest of the squad and then the battle company and beyond...for those of you who followed my original threads you know there are lots built in various stages of completion, so once I get a tactical squad and it's transport done I'll fiddle with one of those. Probably the dreadnought with twin-linked heavy flamers (now in 3rd incarnation using Baal sponson heavy flamers and guitar wire for fuel pipes).

[chaplain belisarius]

nice! ;)

[GAR]

This second picture looks much better than the first. I can see much more on this than the previous, I suspect it has more to do with lighting.

 

Looking good!

 

And don't give up. I have almost half a company done and it looks mighty spiffy.

[Gothical]

I like it a lot more now that the model is darker. It makes the chest eagle, helmet and details show up a lot more - the blue tones in the black have really helped with this, IMO.

[Razhbad]

its a great model, i planned on using that model as a conversion for the silver skull 2nd captain

[Marius Perdo]

Thanks all, been very useful. It is mad how much difference lighting makes really :cuss I might have to look at getting some basic books on photography just so I understand it better (read better as "at all" :D).

 

Anyway, he is done bar some detailing work as said. So script on seals, the sergeant's name (jury is still out, although using Malus as a guide means latin fruit names or negative bonus schemes) and probably "Argent" on the motto scrolls, helmet laurel painted in black, squad numeral on right knee, and some red markings such as an additional tactical arrow on the right knee and possibly an iron skull painted on a shoulder in red (to represent his squad command responsibilities for his secondment from the 1st company).

 

Oddly enough my wife's friend is an artist and musician and she was round with her guitar (so I could look at strings to decide what gauge I needed for fuel pipes) and she was slightly taken aback by how much effort we put into our toy soldiers :P She even called it art, which I suppose it is but I never thought of it that way.

 

Added to that I have £500 worth of IA 9/FW related goodies due any day now, and the club associated with my local GW is starting a Planetry Empires campaign next Monday and asked if I have 1000 to 1500 points of Silver Skulls I could use. I am also taking a break from contracting until 2011 so lots of motivation and time available for the next quarter.

 

I'm not much for challenges and vows but I suppose I can get the battle company done by Christmas, or failing that at least 3000 points. Quite inspired at the moment but I have a days study of ISO/IEC 20000:2005-1 ahead of me, and the consultant's exam tomorrow, so not sure how long it will last :P