The Arundax System

[EffritHydra]

Hi all

This will be my first ever wip and since i've pretty much only collected power armoured armies since I started 40k I could think of no better place to put it. A small bit about me before we begin; I've been collecting/playing 40k for around 15 years or so although I did have a 2 year hiatus somewhere in those 15 years. I Live in Australia normally but I am currently in the UK for 3 months. Whilst in the UK I decided to start a project that would occupy me for my time here, so I purchased the paint station and beginners box(The one without models), a command squad and a space marine battleforce. Having lacked motivaton in the past some times and coming under the influence of shiny new stuff I thought it would be appropiate to blog my work on the net so that I will actually finish a project.

Anyway with the purchase of those new things I didn't just want to build an army, I wanted to create a background and setting for them, so I came up with the Arundax system campaign. Now i'm a huge fan of the horus heresy series and any information relating to that era so I decided to set this campaign in the year M.33.679. several thousand years after the heresy. The campaign will be just me so it won't be an actual played campiagn, more I build all the forces involved then use them to re-learn 40k(The last edition I played was 3rd). Now the factions that I have come up with for the campiagn include alot of my models back in Australia so I don't have to spend a fortune buying new stuff. The factions for the Imperium will be; Novamarines 5th Co. and a contingent of the 1st Co. who have been called to the defence of the Arundax system. The second loyalist force will be the "lost" 13th co. of the space wolves, they have pursued a cult of the Thousand sons to this location. And the final Loyalist forces will be the Grey Knights in their early incarnation, so this will include the origianal 8 members, they have come to the arundax system to halt the Word Bearers in their attempt to create a new demonworld.

Now for the traitor forces; the Night Lords 23rd co. Lacking supplies they have no choice but to aid the Word Bearers and then plunder resources to aid their own coming campiagns against the Imperium. The Thousand Sons, Cult of Ahriman, seek to locate and obtain a rare and mysterious artifact hidden deep within Arundax Prime. Word Bearers great host, seek to delve the Arundax system in chaos and create several new demonworlds to please the gods of chaos. And finally we have the Alpha legion cell 449, they have been operating in this system for some time and have several secret recruiting worlds in the area, their loyalties are still unknown as are their goals.

That's just a short amount of background to the system and I will be posting some of the artwork and backstory that I have written along the way. Anyway now onto what everyone came here for, the models! The army I will be starting with for this fictional campaign are the mighty Novamarines. Strictly codex aherent I will be following the doctrines of the codex astartes for these guys so they will be very close to their ultramarine brothers. Here are some early wip shots of what I have done with the command squad and the battleforce.

My work station:

A WIP of the 5th company:

A more up to date WIP:

WIP of the command Squad, Company champion:

Company standard:

Now as they stand, I have 10 more marines left to build, 5 of which will be a sternguard MK IV squad and the other half will be the other 5 members of the tactical squad. You may have noticed the plastic spacers, I adore true scale and so had to make mine true scale also. Much inspiriation and credit for the true scale goes out to doghouse, apologist, danthedemon and many others, I have several true scales using terminators back in Australia that I can post once I get home. Anyway with all the modeling I felt the need to test my painting skills out as I havn't painted in well over a year. First up on the painting front will be the company champion for the competition on the 28th April. This is him in his undercoated glory:

Well this was the start of my first ever blog, hope it's okay. Thanks for looking

[ThisisJimmy]

Looking good so far, can't wait to see this develop. How big are you going with these marines, as in how much larger are they compared to vanilla marines?

[MagicMan]

Looking cool man, the leg reposing is especially nice.

 

 

Im always looking to steal ideas from someone who dislikes the squatting ''tactical'' legs as much as me! ;)

[EffritHydra]

Hello, and thanks for the comments guys

 

@Thisisjimmy I've used 1mm plasticard at the top of the leg where the join, I then repositioned the leg's so i'd say it would add around 2-3mm height on an average marine. When i'm assembling the next models i'll mock one up as a standard marine with blue tac and do a scale comparison.

 

Started some progress on painting the champion today, will post progress when i've done enough

 

Thanks

[ThisisJimmy]

Thanks for the response mate. I think I have finally been convinced to attempt tall-scaling thanks to you. Looking forward to seeing the work done on the champion.

[EffritHydra]

Hello!

 

Heh no problem jimmy, good luck in your attempts, will be cool to see what you come up with.

 

I've made some progress on the painting front. N

[EffritHydra]

Sorry for the double post my internet has been playing up lately, here is the actual post;

Hello!

Heh no problem jimmy, good luck in your attempts, will be cool to see what you come up with.

I've made some progress on the painting front. Now I havn't painted in over a year so I thought i'd start off easy and work on the scouts first and try a few things i've picked up from around the net. So far i've only blocked out the areas for the blue on several models and worked on the skin of the scouts:

Here are some close ups of the sergeant, I think his skin came out the best of all 5 that I have done so far:

I've also worked the right arm on the champion a little bit, pretty pleased with how it's looking so far but will be spending more time on it this week and working on my blending to get back upto scratch again. Here are some progress shots of the Company Champion:

As you may notice he has no head now! I started with the head as my first thing for painting in over a year...boy was that a mistake. It turned out pretty bad so i removed it and have begun work on a different head. I did manage to rework the old head and may still use it but I feel I can produce a better job on the second head that I have. Any helpful comments and criticism is welcome. Thanks for looking

[Gawain Veteris]

Looking good EffritHydra.

 

I particularly like your choice of pose for your company champion.

 

I look forward to seeing more.

 

GV

[IronDragon66]

How thick is the plasticard that you are using for the legs to add height?

- this seems to be a very common adjustment now and sense im making a space marine army that i want to run with my IG. I would like my SM's to be significantly taller.

[Brother Delacroix]

Looking good so far.

 

Can i ask what you've used for the studs/rivets on the company champion?

[Mr Yellow]

I refuse to comment until you post more ;)

[EffritHydra]

Hey guys,

 

@Gawain Veteris; Thanks for the comments mate, been following your work since the black templars commission, very nice stuff.

 

@IronDragon66; The thickness of plasticard that i've been using is 1mm. I find using 1mm thickness plasticard and also repositioning the legs so they are actually standing and not squating adds around 2-3mm of height to the model. I don't have any guard models here with me in the uk so I cant compare size, but while building my last 10 models i'll mock one up at normal marine height and do a scale shot.

 

@Brother Delacroix; Thanks for the comment mate. For the rivets i've used plastic rod, it's .5 mm thickness I think. I just cut the rod into rivet's then once glued on I filed them down so they were all the same size.

 

@LamenterMarine; Heh have no worries, more progress will be posted soon!

 

Hope to post a few more pictures tomorrow, will probably spend the day working on the company champion as I hope to enter him in the National painting competition. Went to a beginners night at my local GW tonight just to brush up on the rules before 6th comes out. Was pretty lame, ended up having 6 of us playing 1 game with 1000 points each, managed to reach turn 2 in 2hrs..... Hopefully the next one will be less crowded. Anyways off to work on the marines!

 

EffritHydra

[IronDragon66]

@EffritHydra:

- So you add one layer to the legs and then one layer to the torso, for a total of 2mm ?

- At least thats how i saw the conversion done on someone elses post, the layer on the legs and then a layer at the bottom of the upper torso.

[EffritHydra]

Hello!

Replys first;

@Irondragon66; I cut the legs at the joint to the hip section and then add 1mm thick plasticard to the cut section of the leg. I then cut the feet off and reposition the legs and the feet to a mor standing/upright pose. Only plasticard I use on the torso is to widen. Will be working on the rest of the tactical squad this weekend so i'll take some building progress shots.

Now for today I did a bit of work on the captain and painted his new head. I'm happier with how this head has turned out but will maybe add a glaze or two to bring the tones together a bit more. Here are some shots of him;

I also worked on the armour a bit, blending up the bone sides of his armour. About 25% done on the highlights of the bone armour. Will also need to touch up the dividing lines between the bone and the blue as i've gone over a little bit. Here are some progress pics;

As always any helpful c&c is welcome. Thanks for looking :D

[IronDragon66]

very nice, its just amayzing how much different the marine looks with just that 1mm lift....so much better, im gonna start doing it to all my marines

[segmentumobscurusstudios]

Where is the head from the company champion from? It looks like a perfect head for a conversion I'm thinking of..

[Brother-Captain Sharp]

Those flesh colored service studs immediately got the line "

" in my head. :jaw: Great looking skin there!

 

The walking pose on the marines is really effective. Very well done on the green stuff there. I do have to say your champion's armor looks just a bit bare. Is there more detail that's going to be freehanded on?

[EffritHydra]

Hey there, been absent for a while as i've been busy finishing up the company champion for the painting competition tomorrow. Anyways he's done now and handed in to the store so see how he does. Some replies are in order I think!

@Segment; Hey there, the head is from Cato Sicarius the finecast model.

@Brother Captain Sharp; Heh I missed those but they did get painted in the end. I have added some more detail on the torso so hopefully it breaks up the large surface areas of paint.

Anyway here are some shots of the Company Champion;

They were two of the last WIP shots that I took of him. Here are some shots of the finished model;

I had to rush him a little to make it in time for the competition, i'm going away for the weekend so had to hand him in Friday instead of Saturday. Things that i'll be working on after I get him back is re-doing the power sword as I wasn't really happy with it, i'll also be adding freehand laurels to the shoulder pads on the red parts and may re-do the Novamarines symbol on his chest as this was rushed also. Any helpful C&C is welcome. In other news I was at Nottingham on Wednesday and picked up a Razorback, Comtemptor, MK2, 3 & 4 squads and heavy and special weapons packs, so expect alot of building to commence, want to get everything made up before I have to send it home. Thanks for looking!

[Andrew J]

Freehanding is great! Love the shield design, very original and well done. He does seem a little plain though, even with your freehanding on him, maybe some purity seals or something. And maybe paint the bolts silver or gold instead of armor color? that might spruce him up. I am guilty of it too but it does look a lot better and makes it a little more busy.

 

Overall looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!

[verpine]

You're obviously a very talented painter and converter, and this is looking very good so far. You said you're going to redo the power sword, which I agree with, I would suggest doing it in red, because right now he's got blue, tan, red, and green on him. Making the blade red would coordinate with the red on his shoulders, and I think he would look better if you limited your palette a bit. Just my 2 cents. Good luck.

[daemonclaw]

lovely work .now that champ is a hard guy walking into battle with just sword and shield looking like jason statham

[EffritHydra]

Hello

 

Back from my weekend away and refreshed. Well I came second in the painting competition which was pretty good for my first painting in a year. I didn't know if I could post facebook links so I didn't but you can see the winner and some photos by GW Manchester of my model, they are on the GW Manchester FB page.

 

@Andrew j; Thanks for the comments mate. After looking at him more I can see what you mean so i'm going to make some adjustments to him when I get him back.

 

@Verpine; Thanks for the comments verpine! I have been looking through the codex space marines and every power weapon there is silver so, I was thinking of maybe going this route but your suggestion of red I think will make him look alot better. I think i'll aim for a depper red then highlight up to a bright orange for the power pulsing through the blade.

 

@daemonclaw; Thanks for comment mate. Heh glad you like the pose!

 

Okay the improvements i'm going to make to the company champon are; add several purity seals to the model, re-paint the power weapon in red and spend more time highlighting it this time, add slight battle damage to the model but not ott, add more freehand to the shield, thinking of adding the word 'NOVA' underneath the eagle and will be adding freehand laurels to the red parts of the shoulder pads showing his veteran status. Any feedback on these changes is welcomed and any suggestions too.

 

Well for this week i'm gona spend it building the second half of the tactical squad so I have a 10 man unit at last. I'll also build the 5man sternguard squad I think and begin work on the company captain. For now off to wash all FW goodies I got last week!

[Doghouse]

This really is fantastic stuff, love the company champion so far and am really looking forward to seeing more of these guys. :)

[Lachdannan]

Wow, awesome freehand! Love his pose as well.

[Grotsmasha]

Did anyone else do a double-take here? I seriously thought, "Why's he on a skateboard?"