Lollius, the Lamenter

[First Captain]

Hello all,

This is my first post on here that contains my own work. Lolly here is my prototype for a Lamenter army I one day hope to be the proud owner. He comes from an AOBR set I managed to pick up cheaply for my experimental dabbling.

Under direct white light.

Front on.

Behind.

Chapter Badge.

Company Badge.

Few things I might as well answer should anyone ask the questions.

Firstly I know that Lamenters typically have a checkered pauldron under-laying the chapter badge. I chose not to do this for two reasons, the most obvious one being that checkers are a god damn pain to paint, seriously (I have two other prototypes that I chose not to use as I used a different base colouring method). The other reason is that quite frankly, I think they look like crap.

Secondly, the chaos helm belongs to a Red Corsair, I chose this because I think the two armies have a score to settle.

Thirdly the name Lollius was chosen by my troll girlfriend from a list of names I found on a website from a roman legion. Always trying to be a man of my word I stuck with it.

I'm posting here for a bit of feedback mostly. What I'm hoping for mostly out of this thread is a few tips on technique that will help me improve. I don't play the game, though I might start if I ever complete a whole damn squad.

One technique I'm hoping to improve on is the texture and consistency of my painting. I have come back from a 7 year hiatus and feel rusty. This however doesn't explain a problem that has often plagued me throughout my painting exploits. You'll probably notice that the paint job is quite chunky. I hate this so much but can never quite seem to shake it. Yes I do water down my paints, and still somehow come across the same problem. I hate it bitterly and really hope to overcome this particular deficiency.

Another technique I want to improve is highlighting. I look at a lot of pictures in the Hall of Honor and Work in Progress forums and marvel at some of the really good paint jobs that come through here. One of the things I truly appreciate is a subtle highlight, but can never really seem to pull that off.

In terms of my paint scheme, I am happy with all but one aspect, and that is my use of Ogryn Flesh as a wash. I grabbed this tip off a Lamenter (the user) tutorial. I don't really like it. I'm wondering if I could try maybe Gryphonne Sepia or Devlan Mud. I don't own Gryphonne so I have no idea how that would go. If I used Devlan, I have a feeling the pains of painting yellow will only increase.

Anyways enough yammering, hope you enjoy the pics. C&C welcome.

Cheers,

FC

P.S. Sorry about the photo quality, took them with my smart phone.

[Ahrimanjjb]

Looks pretty sweet dude, I think I actually prefer what you've done with the shoulder pad over the typical style so kudos.

 

As for your troubles maybe it's your paints themselves, if they're rather old and starting to get sludgy they won't spread as easily. Or you need to focus on doing more layers of a less thick coat.

 

As for the shading what I do is paint Dark Flesh directly into the recesses, that way it gives a nice shade while not effecting the yellow you've painted already, though maybe a devlan mud wash applied directly into the recesses or washed over and then the yellow re-highlighted would work, but I feel this would change the yellow too much. Trial and error though dude, find which technique works for you.

 

One crit might be to not jump from such a dark red to a lighter one for the highlights, red is difficult using the Citadel Paints but if you mix them and blend up a nice mid colour it would work well.

[Mr Yellow]

Pretty good for a first bash at a Lemonhead, like the alliteration in the name, always an eye chatcher.

 

On your issue with clumpy paint, part of it is watering down the paint but you also need to use several layers of said watered down paint to acheive a smooth and consistent colour. You won't get coverage immediately from one application.

 

Changing your basecoat may help too, try looking at army painter shades for priming, I don't use black on my guys and it saves a butt load of time.

 

Please do full cheques and not quarters on the shoulder pad, I know it takes ages but it's time consuming more than it is hard. Otherwise it just doesn't look right.

 

Also, careful with red on lamenters, I went heavy on the red and it looked awful, I think you get away with it on this guy but too much and too bright kills it.

 

Finally, more please.

[d Karma b]

You could've fooled me about the 7 year hiatus, the painting is crisp and the divides between colors quite well defined.

[First Captain]

@Ahrimanjjb

Fair comment on the red highlights. Oddly enough you happen to do pre-heresy Thousand Sons...don't suppose you might know a good mix to use? The two reds I own are Vallejo Game Colour Scarlett Red and GW Blood Red.

@LamenterMarine

I do spray my models white and start with a coat of Iyanden Darksun. I find that this saves me time and tears when it comes to getting the yellow going. My current yellow is a mix of 50/50 GW Sunburst Yellow and Vallejo Game Colour Gold Yellow (Or as I call it "American Cheese Yellow").

I absolutely agree with you on the overuse of red on these minis. I'm going to upload my original Lamenter minis (won't be hard to see why I changed colours). I chose to do red skulls because I felt like they seemed washed out in a bone colour on yellow. As you'll see in the pics, a red skull on the helmet made red lenses seem a little less eye catching.

I don't know about this checkered business. I see your point and I agree they aren't hard, just time consuming. My biggest issue is that I don't particularly find them to look that great on anything, let alone my sphess mehreens.

@d Karma b

Thanks dude, good to know I'm getting something right. Truthfully though there were plenty of mistakes, and plenty of swearing. Actually on Lolly while I was base coating his backpack (I do it in separate pieces) with Iyanden Darksun after painting the body up fully, I accidentally stroked my brush over his chapter badge. All I could do was laugh and quietly wish I didn't have to fix it.

Here are pics of the originals. Just to sate LamenterMarine if no one else:

Turcio the first from the front

Turcio's chapter badge (I definitely improved my heart painting method)

Turcio's blood drop

Varius the second from the front

Varius' chapter badge

Varius from the back

Thanks for the thoughts.

[tiny sam]

i agree with LamenterMarine, to much red and he might look like an IF.

 

as for the yellow if you use Gryphonne sepia you'll need to give another pass of yellow on the larger plates, it a little bit time consuming but I think the effect worth it.

 

 

good job over all I kind of like the quartered shoulder plate.

[Mr Yellow]

I don't know about this checkered business. I see your point and I agree they aren't hard, just time consuming. My biggest issue is that I don't particularly find them to look that great on anything, let alone my sphess mehreens.

They can look good I think when done well

Take a look at my dudes too if you like, just follow link in my sig.

[First Captain]

@tiny sam

If I get a look I'm happy with one more coat on top of the 2-4 I'm already applying isn't that big a deal. And it was a concern looking too much like Imperial Fists. I even considered using other colours for the bolter, but decided that red was the only real option. Still went darker than the red typically used for IF.

 

@LamenterMarine

I had seen your minis when you originally posted them, and took a quick refresh of them earlier. Have also seen Bohun's minis as well. While both implementations of the checkers are fantastic, I still don't particularly like the look. It's really quite annoying, I love the fluff of Lamenters, but I'm not a fan of the checkered shoulder. Feels too orky. Do I have to quarter the quarters or something to make you happy? :P

 

I felt like quartering the shoulder would be a happy compromise between a true Lamenter scheme and my own aesthetic pleasure.

[Mr Yellow]

Do I have to quarter the quarters or something to make you happy? :P

Deal :)

[Ahrimanjjb]

I've recently started doing my Thousand Sons' red a different way and now I do:

 

Mechrite Red,

Badab Black wash,

Mechrite Red highlight,

Mix small amounts of Blood Red into the mix gradually as you build up the colour.

 

This leads to a very light red but with a dark shade, you could apply the highlights a lot less extensively than I have or stop before you get to blood red/use it as an extreme highlight if you wanted to keep it darker.

[First Captain]

Ah yeah cool I have all of those. I had used my Scarlett Red and Devlan Mud wash before highlighting. Thanks for the tip Ahriman, I'll try it on my next mini, which shall be started today.

 

A friend also suggested I try the Tausept Ochre yellow guide in the new 'Eavy Metal, so that might be how mini number 3 comes out.

[Son of Carnelian]

Love that first model! Looking forward to seeing more!

[Redfinger]

That is a nice looking yellow, though it says to me more Imperial Fist yellow than Lamenter yellow....I would suggest pushing more toward a golden yellow, Vallejo Golden Yellow may be a nice base. Pick yourself up some Army Painter Daemonic Yellow, coat your minis first in this, then hit it with the Vallejo Paint, it will make it last a lot longer. Of course you could always try oil paints, they really have a nice hue to them.

 

As far as checkers go, yeah they can be a bummer, take a look at some of these photos;

 

 

 

All of those checker patterns came off of the Ork decal sheet, if done properly it can look rather nice.

 

 

Ashton

[First Captain]

So after enjoying an early morning visit to the dentist, on my way home I grabbed a few new pots and got started.

The plan for the next two minis goes along the lines of:

Trollius (friend came up with this one) will use the same method as Lolly, but use Gryphonne Sepia as a wash. Might even do full checkers because I'm easily influenced it seems.

Nerva will be my attempt at a friend's suggestion of using a guide in the most recent 'Eavy Metal book.

So with that in mind I got started on Trollius. Yeah, yeah I'm sure it's a lame name, but I liked it :cuss

The only finished so far

I think so far I like the Gryphonne Sepia over Ogryn Flesh, but I'll wait until I actually get to more than just the hands. This time I borrowed Ahriman's idea of using Mechrite Red and just adding a little Blood Red. I only did the addition once to avoid making the same mistake as I had on Lolly.

Let me know what you think, and sorry I don't have more stuff to offer :lol:.

[Ahrimanjjb]

Definitely better on the boltgun I would say, and like you I'm also very much liking the wash on the yellow, looks like you're onto a winner.

[First Captain]

Hey guys, remember me?

So this has been a dead thread for a very long time. This has a lot to do with getting a lot of Christmas casual work, plus Christmas mayhem in general. However the biggest reason for the long delay in completion of Trollius has just been the utter agony of painting yellow. It's partly my fault for choosing to do an overall wash of Gryphonne Sepia instead of a spot wash. The actual result after the wash was pretty good, but it was all uneven, so on I went with the agonising task of putting coat after coat of thinned yellow paint over the armour plates.

This was the worst experience in painting I ever had. It took so long to before I felt I was getting anywhere.

Anyways enough crying more photo uploading. Forgive the crap quality of the frontal pic, for some reason it came out bad.

Trolly front, the grey wings also seems a better option than going with too much red:

Trolly's chapter badge WITH CHECKERS! (Happy now LamenterMarine?) I realised that perhaps what was bothering me about the checks was doing the pauldron trim in black, going with yellow trim looks much better:

Trolly's back. Might do skulls in grey, not too sure at this point:

Trolly's blood drop. Moved the company symbol to the bare yellow knee, more room makes it look less crowded:

Working on the base of my next unit Nerva. Just have to put his name on it, add a bit of the dead grass, then it's base coat time. With Nerva I'm going to use the method recommended to me by a guy at my local GW store:

Base - Iyanden Darksun

First Layer - 50/50 Iyanden Darksun and GW Golden Yellow

Spot Wash - Ogryn Flesh

Highlight - Golden Yellow

Anyways hopefully this is my last test before I land on a final technique. Or at least a less demotivating colour to paint.

Will post more regularly...maybe....

Cheers guys.

[Dosjetka]

Not bad, I must say. Nothing mind-blowingly beautiful, but good nonetheless. I wish you good luck on your quest for the Holy Yellow and look forward to seeing the final results ;)

 

Ludovic

[First Captain]

Hey hey,

Looks like I have a weekly update going. Sure beats the fail two month gap from before.

This was the technique the GW guy suggested I try to ease my suffering. I am incredibly thankful for it too. Not only do I feel like he Nerva looks so much better than the others, he was so much easier to paint. At no stage was I feeling frustrated and thinking that he was looking crappy.

Anyway, without further dudes I present Nerva, fifth prototype of my Lamenter army:

Front:

Chapter badge:

Back:

Blood drop:

Thought I might as well take an evolution photo of my Lamenter prototypes that have slowly been building up over the last 7 - 8 months. In chronological order from left to right:

I'm pretty happy with the way this mini came out and look forward to painting more in this fashion. As always C&C welcome. Always looking to improve, I don't think I'm a bad painter, but I definitely know I can be better.

[Biohazard]

I really like the yellow you have on Nerva. Looks a lot more fitting of the Lamenters. Cant wait to see more of these.

[carnosaur93]

these are quite good, you have a nice and not-too-in-your-face yellow

 

however... iam sorry, but two of those names crack me up: "Trollius" and "Lollius" (especially in that order) xP

[Grimdarkness]

They look great nice yellow.

[First Captain]

@Biohazard I agree, and it's so easy to paint! I should have more coming soonish since I can do a production line so to speak. A group of friends and I are planning on having a day next week of hobby in preparation for a tourney they are involved with. So I should at least have a WIP or two of the remaining squad.

 

@carnosaur93 Haha Trollius wasn't a serious name, it was a joke a friend of mine made when I showed him Lollius. The name Lollius did come from a Roman Legion name website (how historically accurate that is remains to be seen), but I made the mistake of letting my gf pick from the list. Guess I need to pick out another 7 names :S

 

@Grimdarkness Thanks mate :)