Come and take them!

[Molloch]

Hi,

Having not been a registered user very long I'm a little cautious about posting here, especially as there are so many incredibly talented painters and sculptors currently showcasing their work (and who am I to hold my stuff up next to theirs). The reason for this thread is that I've been inspired by the work of others - Silber's Silent Swords Thread; Metal Apostle's The Stormwing cometh thread and Koran's Spears of Ultramar Thread - and wish to get some feedback on my work to date.

A little about my army. I started this army quite some time ago with the intention of just haveing a few thousand points to play with, but it developed into a Battle Company, and associated tank support, and currently stands at about 14,000 points which I'm slowly finishing off.

Like quite a few people, I've long been a fan of greek history, and 300, and upon the film version being released I thought that it would make a cool Space marine army. Cunningly I'd already been painting gold-armoured marines with red details for quite a while, so I thought why not do a first company based around a phalanx? (obviously...)

So that's my current project. 100 terminators; 30 with storm bolters etc, 30 with lightning claws and 40 with thunder hammers and storm shields. My little avatar thingy is my colour scheme, and this is how it looks on models:

I have to apologise at this point, my photography skills aren't amazing and the light is bad where I'm currently at.

This is Terminator Squad III lead by Veteran-Sergeant Nikandros (with the aquilla thingy on top of his armour)

This, meanwhile, is my Chapter Master - Asterion Molloch:

He's made of Commander Culln's body, a bare head from the FW Raven Guard upgrade kit, Vulkan He'stan's spear with the terrible bling removed, Archaon's shield and a cloak from the Space Wolves terminator kit.

They still need a few details filling in, and their bases doing... that's the next stage (I hate basing...)

[Ecritter]

nice work

 

:P

[Pulse]

Very nice work, the shields in particular are very nice. The poses you have the models in are great as well, they are ready to brace for impact on the shields with the spears ready to stab down. Great stuff. ;)

[Doghouse]

Looks great, very nice use of parts and the painting is top notch. ;)

[Reyner]

Awesome. Where did you get the shields?

[Cedric]

Seriously cool theme!

 

You need some GS to convert the lot to be barechested and have their torsos oiled.

Then we'd be talking! ;)

[Zincite]

Brighter red would make them look better in my opinion

;)

[Montuhotep]

Very nice - how about a banner with the words 'Molon Labe!' on it? That was the quote attributed to Leonidas, the translation of which, of course, is 'Come and take them!'

[koran]

Im liking this stuff a lot (and thanks for the mention :D).

 

Did you convert those shield yourself? If you did they are VERY good work. You could sell those with no problems!

 

The gold is very well done. It might be nicer to have it a little darker in some recesses but thats a totally personal opinion and I can see others not agreeing, so if you do like it like that then go for it. What colour is the gold by the way? Its nice.

 

One thing I think could be done better is the white and black (on the writing on the purity seals). You do what a lot of people do and use actual black and white. You seem to be going for a realistic painting style from the gold and its working well except for these colours. The secret is that you should almost never use pure white or black on a model as they are too extreme. If you put a bit of grey in your black (just enough so its off colour a bit) and a light grey (fortress grey and skull white even mix works well) for the white. What happens it that without a pure white colour to compare it to on the model your eyes assume that the colour your seeing is white without it actually being that un-naturally bright. Try putting some new bright white paper up against a slightly old "white" t-shirt and you will see what I mean.

 

Cant wait to see more of them!

[Brother Caedrius]

These guys look great! Let's hope they cope with Orky bits blocking out the sun!

[Black Hand]

Where did you get/how did you convert those shields? They're fantastic!

[Pigeons]

absolutely amazing

[Chaplain Hiltraud]

Very nice models, I like the way you have posed them and painted the gold armour. I also like the skin tones on the faces, superbly done.

If I can add my little critique though: I'd like to see a little more depth in the blue colour that is on the purity seals and the skull emblem on the parchment.

 

I'd love to see the entire battle company too :D

 

Yours in Honour and Faith

Chaplain Hiltraud

[Molloch]

Wow, thanks very much for the comments guys B)

 

@Reyner, koran, Black Hand - the shields are taken from Dwarf King Alaric from the Warhammer range. I wanted to avoid the Lamda symbol as seen in 300 where possible, and I like the semi-celtic theme twinned with the very classical concept. Sadly my greenstuffing is limited to gap-filling and the odd purity seal so I'm afraid bare chests aren't likely any time soon. Sorry Cedric ;)

 

koran - the gold is an overbrush of Tin Bitz then Brazen Brass/Dwarf Bronze (as you can't buy the former any more) then Shining Gold then a drybrush of Mithril Silver which burnishes it down and to my mind looks a bit like the hammer pattern you see on hand-worked metal... the insides of bronze bowls and so forth.

 

@Chaplain Hiltraud and Zincinte - the red and blue need another highlight at this stage. I'm not sure how light to take the blue as I like the darker shade juxtaposed with the brighter gold.

 

@Paladin 7221 - I have been trying to work out how to fit some Thermopylae quotes into the army as a whole. I'm going to work on a Command Squad at some stage featuring a banner bearer, just looking for a cool one that I can shave and personalise a bit (my freehand's not great), but I do have a model I use to represent the Crusade Banner stratagem that I've done a Molon Labe scrollwork on see ^_^

 

I'll post some shots of the full army as soon as possible, and again thanks for your comments :P. Koran - thanks for the pointers about black and white. I'll do a bit of shading and re-work the purity seals a bit and see what happens. How could I not mention your conversions in a Terminator-based thread hehe ;)