Stoneburners - Chapter Champion (Dueling Master) WiP Model

[Bryan Blaire]

Looking crisp and clean Bryan!

Thanks E_E! Not near to your quality, but I'm slowly getting to a level I'm satisfied with. :)

So, I lied, I'm not going to make it to a full squad of anything before posting, because these little bastards are takin' me about 3 hours or so just to get the lining done. I really, really hope I can get this paint scheme down so I can start cruising a little faster. However... *cue some horns: Duhn duhn duh duuuuhn!* I have one guy done with both the black and green lining, and I got his company badge on his knee.

I present to y'all for your perusal Unnamed Marine Number 1 of Unnumbered Squad "Paint Scheme Trial :mellow:-es" of the Stoneburners 4th Company:

With his currently only black armor grey-lined combat squad:

"Tricord.. er.. I mean Auspex readings show that we aren't finished yet, Captain!"

Link to Completed Tactical Squad Guias

I tried to adjust the way I finished up the purity seals to match closer to what I was doing on the Terminators (boot on the right, lined in w/Dark Grey, boot on the left, no lining yet):

I don't think I entirely like the way the green armor highlight color came out, and it took way too much paint to do (4 drops of DA green:1 drop Bleached Bone), so I'm revising that particular idea at the moment. I want to do some starker, brighter highlights on top of the full lining currently done and I'm planning on having some battle damage as well, but I want to get them to a completed, "clean" state so that I'm not trying to go back and paint torn up icons "behind" the battle damage after the fact (as I might have to with my Terminators).

(Sadly, these guys were the first squad I ever put together when the new Space Marine Tactical Squad kit came out, so they have a ton of mold lines, I know, however...)

Any CnC is appreciated. I know the company marking is a little wonky on the straight lines, but does it look alright, or just way too busy? I currently have the entire company marking set up drawn up by hand, but I haven't decided if I'm biting off more than I can chew for complexity and actually being interesting. I figured the large bleached bone areas would look good on the Company Master's shoulder pads to add in some personal heraldry or something as well.

Please let me know what I could improve!

Edit: removed old images and added link to completed squad.

[Captain Semper]

That post was like:

 

Blah blah blah blah WOW LOOK AT THAT KNEE PAD!!! :P Blah blah blah blah.

 

;) Joking aside, the knee pad is certainly a huge focal point (and awesome btw). Are you going to repeat it to all rank 'n file marines? It looks way too personalized. If I could do that level of detail I'd probably reserve it for the Master of the Company. Or an important marine. Unnamed Marine No 1 doesn't really cut it ;)!

 

As regards the green highlighting have you considered other lighter/brighter greens? I find Scorpion Green to work wonders when mixed with DA Green in various mix ratios. For a really bright effect you might even consider adding yellow in the last highlight. But if you want to go for dim but sharp highlight then I guess the bleached bone or even Deneb stone might do the trick...

 

I definitely agree you need to work on the Masters shoulder pad as much as you can - it is the first point anyone would look at for personal heraldy and the surface lends itself nicely for such work.

 

Look forward for more - and Merry Christmas!

[Interrogator Stobz]

That IS a great kneepad ;) incredibly sharp linework mate.

I agree it will take you a month of sundays to get a force painted to that level. In saying that you have a great eye for detail so convince your wife to allocate you more painting time instead of comparing your work to E_E's :P ;) Two totally different styles of painting. Make a force that is great but small and let it grow.................................. otherwise I get the impression that you won't be happy with the result.

 

Merry Christmas to you and your family mate.

 

s

 

Edit: on the highlighting, you did a great job on the termies, be as bold with these dudes and they will look awesome and cohesive as an army in their lighting effects, just as important as cohesive bases imho.

[ellis_esquire]

That IS a great kneepad :tu: incredibly sharp linework mate.

I agree it will take you a month of sundays to get a force painted to that level. In saying that you have a great eye for detail so convince your wife to allocate you more painting time instead of comparing your work to E_E's ;) :lol: Two totally different styles of painting. Make a force that is great but small and let it grow.................................. otherwise I get the impression that you won't be happy with the result.

 

Merry Christmas to you and your family mate.

 

s

 

Edit: on the highlighting, you did a great job on the termies, be as bold with these dudes and they will look awesome and cohesive as an army in their lighting effects, just as important as cohesive bases imho.

 

 

Yes do stop comparing - i love your style further because its different to mine! :)

[Interrogator Stobz]

Hi again Bryan,

 

I just reread my post, I didn't mean to sound rude, I love the detail in your work. I was referencing you comment on E_Es topic about your wife's comment/comparison ;) My wife is more supportive of my hobby time when I produce good results, she can see I'm being productive and artistic instead of just "mucking about with toy soldiers" that she usually says :(

 

s

[Brother Immolator]

The kneepad of doom is awesome,what is more awesome though is the script on the purity seals.

[Bryan Blaire]

That post was like:

 

Blah blah blah blah WOW LOOK AT THAT KNEE PAD!!! :D Blah blah blah blah.

 

Joking aside, the knee pad is certainly a huge focal point (and awesome btw). Are you going to repeat it to all rank 'n file marines? It looks way too personalized. If I could do that level of detail I'd probably reserve it for the Master of the Company. Or an important marine. Unnamed Marine No 1 doesn't really cut it!

 

As regards the green highlighting have you considered other lighter/brighter greens? I find Scorpion Green to work wonders when mixed with DA Green in various mix ratios. For a really bright effect you might even consider adding yellow in the last highlight. But if you want to go for dim but sharp highlight then I guess the bleached bone or even Deneb stone might do the trick...

 

I definitely agree you need to work on the Masters shoulder pad as much as you can - it is the first point anyone would look at for personal heraldy and the surface lends itself nicely for such work.

 

Look forward for more - and Merry Christmas!

:P I know you can do that level of detail! Yes, the knee pad is the Stoneburners 4th Company insignia, so it should eventually be on everyone's knee (except probably the command squad and Company Master, who will have it incorporated in other ways I think. It's actually not that complex, it's just the Dark Angels' 4th company insignia split down the middle and the right side inverted. Then I added green squares on one side in place of the black and red squares on the other in place of the white. What I'm really trying to think up is a campaign insignia for their right knees. But I haven't come up with a story for the campaign yet... All the Marines will probably eventually get names as well, it's coming!

 

Yeah, I'm going to have to experiment with this guy, get a good color scheme down, so I can start batching some guys up. Give some Snot Green and Scorpion Green a shot, save the Bleached Bone only for the starkest highlights or something. For the Company Master's pad, I've become convinced by the awesomeness that is Stobz's Company Master that I'm going to need me some classier shoulder pads for my command squad and Company Master, so since I've got a deal arranged with the Missus about ordering some Forgeworld stuff for Christmas, I'm going to have to decide what I really want to get. Too bad Sevrin Loth's honor guard have too much Scorpion-ing on their pads...

 

That IS a great kneepad incredibly sharp linework mate.

I agree it will take you a month of sundays to get a force painted to that level. In saying that you have a great eye for detail so convince your wife to allocate you more painting time instead of comparing your work to E_E's. Two totally different styles of painting. Make a force that is great but small and let it grow.................................. otherwise I get the impression that you won't be happy with the result.

 

Merry Christmas to you and your family mate.

 

s

 

Edit: on the highlighting, you did a great job on the termies, be as bold with these dudes and they will look awesome and cohesive as an army in their lighting effects, just as important as cohesive bases imho.

Hi again Bryan,

 

I just reread my post, I didn't mean to sound rude, I love the detail in your work. I was referencing you comment on E_Es topic about your wife's comment/comparison. My wife is more supportive of my hobby time when I produce good results, she can see I'm being productive and artistic instead of just "mucking about with toy soldiers" that she usually says

 

s

;) It didn't sound rude, it's hysterical, mostly because I know she was joking and gave me a goofy little "I'm doing this to tweak you" grin. She actually likes that I have some good artistic outlets, otherwise I'd drive her bat-:cuss insane (I'm also leaning on her for a drum kit, since I played a little when younger and want to do so again). She's really supportive of my hobbies and I support her novel and short story writing. :lol: She does call them my "Little Green Army Men that go Pew-Pew" sometimes, and asks me if I'm going to make noises when I move them around, but it's all in good fun, because if you can't tease your family, what fun is that? :D I actually get to allocate a lot of time to any of my hobbies!

 

Thanks for the compliments and I'm glad you are liking it so far! Sadly, repainting is tedious... I wish it would only take a month of Sundays...

 

Yes do stop comparing - i love your style further because its different to mine! :)

Oh, it's all in good fun. I do it to let you guys know how great I think your stuff is! I'm glad you are enjoying them, 'cause I really like painting these guys, and hopefully one day I'll post a complete IA for them and you guys will like that too (although at this rate, it might end up a freaking short story).

 

The kneepad of doom is awesome,what is more awesome though is the script on the purity seals.

Thanks Brother Immolator! What do you like about the script on the seals, and what could I improve?

 

Can you guys believe it made me edit out emoticons?

THE FOLLOWING ERROR(S) WERE FOUND

You have posted a message with more emoticons that this board allows. Please reduce the number of emoticons you've added to the message

LOL

 

Belated Merry Christmas to all of the board members/readers! Hope everyone had a great couple of days!

[Brother Immolator]

Thanks Brother Immolator! What do you like about the script on the seals, and what could I improve?

 

 

Improve?I dont know,they look great to me.The numbers and the script style are cool,more than i can do.And the noumbering seems to be in scale with the seal.

Everytime is tried that the lines seemed to be for me to handle in such a tiny space.

[company veteran]

Loving the eye lenses. any chance of a tutorial? keep up the good work. more! more! more!

[Bryan Blaire]

Loving the eye lenses. any chance of a tutorial? keep up the good work. more! more! more!

Company Veteran, I apologize for the horribly long delay in my response, but I will definitely make a note that the next time I start some new or redo any of my old marines in my new style, I do a good quality tutorial photo shoot on how I do my eyes. They really aren't that complicated, I just try and do some good clean up at the end to hide all the extra paint that gets on them from it.

So it's been forever since I've done anything with my guys except some additional highlight lining, but today I went and got myself some red sable brushes, and I must say, these things are awesome! I'm not sure if the specific Kolinsky sable stuff could be much better, but if it isn't, any of these type of brushes are definitely worth the investment. If it is, wow, the ones I have made blending/feathering so much easier and other than a little mistake with some too-water diluted paint, they have awesome paint flow control, I really can't see how much better they could really get.

On to the show!

So, I haven't specifically come up with a full task force deployment story, but I know I've set it up to be a fast and hostile insertion against some Traitors (who have likely already taken out some Templars of some sort - we'll see on this part when I get around to more basing and it gives me an excuse to get some Drop Pods), so here's my current idea for a task force insignia:

Edit: Here's the final task force insignia:

I used (edit: grey-)blue and white to represent the combat drop air assault style deployment and I don't think that the limited blue will be all that jarring, even army wide, because it should basically be the only blue around.

Edit: nope, it was jarring.

C&C very much welcome! What do you think?

So, here's what I'm thinking I'm going to use to as my Tactical squad insignia:

Not planning on any squad numberings on these guys, because:

1) I envision Marines as being much more flexible regarding deployment and squad assignments as they have been portrayed in the books, etc

2) Real life practicality of moving my troops around to configure them how I want to deploy them, I'm already limiting myself enough to weapons being assigned to a certain squad type (heavy weapons mostly), why permanently assign them a position in a specific squad...

Yes, I know I could always repaint them, but I'm putting a lot of time into this already and I don't feel like being my little green army men's painting servitor! Also, I'm kinda anal about things like that.

Some extra devotional texts for this marine, because he's the paint scheme test dummy:

On the shoulder pad with the squad designator and the back of a greave

Saw this on Yellow Stripe's Guardians of the Covenant as an eye tattoo here in the forum and thought it would be an awesome way to represent a Marksmanship Honor (and I just don't do helmet-less if I can avoid it) - so, Yellow Stripe, thanks a ton for the idea and inspiration!

My sketches on other squad insignia:

And finally, current sketches and images of company designators:

3rd Company: 4th Company: 5th Company:

7th Company:

These take some imagination, but the heavy close in cross-hatching is filled in by Black, single slanted areas are filled in by Red, Bone is marked, non-filled areas are to be White, and the loose cross-hatching is to be filled in by DA Green. I'm thinking the task force will contain predominantly 4th Company units, supported by one squad from 5th Company, possibly a squad or two from 7th Company, and a couple of squads from 8th Company.

So, after all that, thoughts, comments, criticism? Thanks in advance all!

[Brother Kovash]

Better late than never, amazing work Bryan! Well worth the wait. Your task force insignia is top notch, just enough of a difference in color to catch the eye, but not draw attention away from the rest of the model. I don't think I've seen this idea done before, and you've pulled it off perfectly. Great job.

[shabbadoo]

There is a very "old school" feel to that campaign marking. Pain in the butt to freehand paint on a bunch of models, but very nice looking. :lol:

[Interrogator Stobz]

Very nice Bryan, also great to see you back on the horse :lol:

 

s

[Captain Semper]

:lol:

 

This is an amazing project on so many levels! Good to see you back with the brush Bryan Blair! Suffice to say you kneepad work is stunning! Love that everything has a meaning and you put so much effort to flesh out your Chapter! The squad specialty markings work really well - good choice with the swords there! The honor marking on this guys helmet is so awesome I can't begin to tell ya! B) And then you have the Company markings... Task force insignia is great, although the blue takes some getting used to... Would you consider maybe grey of some sort? Just test it out and see what comes up.

 

You know what would be cool? Take the force organization chart and try to fill it! Use 4th Comp. as the core and then make the third Assault Squad from 8th, the third Dev Squad from 9th and then add a Tact Squad from 6th and 7th so you'll get 4 Tacts, 2 Assaults and 2 Devs from 4th, and one squad from each of the reserve Comps! That'll be grand! A cocktail of markings that you do so well! And a million points force to boot! :D

 

That will keep you busy for the rest of you life hobby-wise! Hahaha!

[Isiah]

Great work on the heraldry Bryan Blaire :P

 

Cheers

I

[Bryan Blaire]

Thank you very much, all, I'm glad you guys like the insignia and the rest of the markings! I had reservations myself about the true blue in the insignia, and with my wife saying it looked "superhero-y" and CPT Semper's suggestion on a grey, I decided to try a blue-grey on a second marine:

So, I think I might be liking this a little better, more stormy sky and less brightly standing out.

Thoughts? Which one do you guys like better?

Edit: swapped old image for a better one

[Candleshoes]

Love the badge and the prep-work and fore-thought that went into the alternatives for the squad, role and company markings.

 

Great catch as well on that sword marking on the eye!

[Captain Semper]

Thoughts? Which one do you guys like better?

 

;)

 

This is better for sure. More subtle. I like your wife's comment about it being superhero-y! ^_^ Keep it that way I think is an improvement from the pevious version.

[Bryan Blaire]

All, thank you very much for your thoughts.

 

I wanted to throw a quick shout in here to Yellow Stripe and his great Guardians of the Covenant, you have some amazing and inspiring work in your thread. I included credit for one of your ideas I incorporated in an edit above.

 

Candleshoes, your thread is awesome for the grim darkness it captures so well. Your tactical marking of the sideways sword definitely convinced me to alter my single downward pointed sword tactical marking to the reversed swords marking I'm using now. It just looks so much better (and doesn't mirror the chapter marking as much) than what I original had. If you don't mind, I may PM you asking about some of the bits you used, because I need some skulls and bones for my Terminators.

 

Semper, thanks for supporting everyone around here so much. It's funny sometimes and very awesome of ya.

 

I'll try and post up some more results as I get a few more guys further toward completion!

[Yellow Stripe]

Awesome looking stuff there Bryan!

 

Loving the details on insignia and heraldry. I've noticed too, your adding of details to marines to make them individual from each other, which I particularly like. Also, thanks for the mention, I'm glad I was able to give you some ideas. :)

 

Anyways, keep up the great work, I have been keeping a constant eye on this thread, and can't wait to see more.

 

-Yellow-

[ThePope]

Brilliant looking marines, have to say your freehand work is utterly insane! Brilliant pads, knees etc.

[Frejdruk]

Great looking army you've got! I really like the swords as squad markers, innovative and cool (innovative to me at least, first time I've seen it)! I agree with your wife though, regarding the super-hero thing. The new, darker version is much improved, but have you considered moving the task force insignia from the knee-pad alltogether? It could be painted as a small shield-formed insignia someplace else, on either one of the greaves for instance. To me, differing designs on both knee pads looks a tad busy, but that's probably a matter of taste. The execution is astounding though!

 

I really like the name too, Stoneburners. Very unique!

[Bryan Blaire]

Thank you guys all, I'm really glad you are enjoying this thread. I made quite a bit of progress in the last 4 to 5 days getting the great majority of the details done on this squad.

Sadly I will be forced to take a break from painting for at least two weeks because I'm not going to have access to my paints for at least that amount of time because work is taking me away from home base. ;)

Here's what I've got right now:

Combat Squad 1

Combat Squad 2

Edit:Link to Completed Tactical Squad Guias

Insignia painted on Mk 6 armor greaves:

And since my heavy bolter gunner doesn't actually have exposed surfaces on his knees/greaves, here's what I did with his insignia:

Frejdruk, thank you very much for your timely suggestion on the shield shape for the insignia, I kept them in the same place, since I decided already that the knee is where this squad had the task force insignia painted, but I will be adjusting that somewhat per squad I think. I'm glad you like the Chapter name! One of these days I will get around to actually posting the backstory and other story items I have for them. :lol:

Apparently I didn't get all the dog and cat hair that consistently floats around landing on my minis before I take photos.

Thanks for the positive feedback from everyone on the freehand, it helps me because apparently I'm way too critical of my work. These things are never straight enough or have varying angles between figures on things, and it usually drives me crazy. I'm not looking forward to freehanding the wings for the Chapter iconography. So, over the next couple of weeks, I will be working on the details of the Task Force, which will be lead by 4th Company Master Ithurael (working name ATM) and will consist of 4th Company, a couple of 5th Company, one 8th and one 9th Company squads along with company Dreads and armored support, as well as Deathwalker and Boneseeker units attached. This squad still needs all of its bolters properly washed with Badab Black and highlighted, Tactical markings painted, and the Chapter icon and they pretty much are done. Sprinkle some unique icons/honors for these guys, a couple of names, and it'll be time to roll on to squad 2. This would end up being the first full DIY chapter squad I've ever gotten 100% done if I can finish it without changing my mind on details.

Comments/criticism? What do you guys think of the highlighting? Does it need spot highlights/extra lining with brighter colors, or does what is there work for ya? Any further suggestions for improvement?

[Interrogator Stobz]

REALLY nice squad Bryan, the knees are very balanced and the overall detail is excellent. Esp like the highlights within the squares.

White stripe on Sgts face is brilliant as is the little knives on others.

 

I love the HB and Flamer choice, they are off to kill meatsacks or filthy xenos by the look.

 

Shoulder pad markings inthe pipeline? They look a little bare :D

 

I like your bases too, nice and subtle and could fit on most terrain without looking out of place.

 

s

[Dark Rage]

Nice squad looks really great, all the heraldry and designs make each marine look unique, really like the arrow with the lightning strike down it.