The Neurode Crusade - Updates and Fixes to HQs and Elites

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Terminators look great ! I can tell you put a lot of work into them and it shows.

[Brother Christopher]

Terminators look great ! I can tell you put a lot of work into them and it shows.

 

Thank you, Brother! I did put a lot of work and time into these, maybe even too much ;) I just hope that Terminators will have decent rules for a bit longer so that I can make use of them!

 

 

 

The models are beautifully painted and detailed.

Thanks, that's awfully nice of you to say! Feedback such as yours makes me feel like I'm maybe overly critical of my output - I am always slightly unhappy with how my models stand the test of a close-up photo; still, at least I've grown to admit that from a distance they look pretty dope!

If your work is compared to that of highly paid professionals who receive commissions for painting other people's models, then yes, they look crude. If it's compared to other members of this board, your work is head and shoulders above 80% of their best efforts. You might as well be content, and avoid following Fulgrim down the road to hell that is perfectionism.

 

 

You're right - in comparison to professional or experienced painters, my output isn't that great, but I don't have the resources or motivation to push my skills further - at this point, I just want to have as many painted models as possible in a relatively reasonable time, plus I'm trying to stick to a certain aesthetic throughout my army.

 

But you truly honour and humble me in the second part of your post! I know that you go through a huge chunk of this board so you must know what you're saying. Once again, thank you for the favourable assessment of my work!

 

[Brother Carpenter]

Bjorn said it.

Your models look very good.

I'd love to face an army painted to your standard on the table.

[Brother Christopher]

Thank you, mate! You people are the major reason why I'm still doing this ;)

 

I planned on painting some power armour infantry (I even drybrushed a Multi-melta Initiate and a custom Marine with a large sniperish bolter who will act as the Master of Ordnance in my Crusade), but all real progress has been impeded by a malfunction - my SSD hard drive broke and I had to focus on limiting the damage caused by its failure (which basically resulted in me losing access to my main computer) and trying to sort out the professional mess I've found myself in. While I were reasonable enough to back my professional things up, unfortunately I lost a half-a-year worth of 40k resources and other personal stuff, which kind of sucks. But lesson's been learnt - I'll make backups of the more important personal stuff too and will praise Omnissiah with more due diligence. Now I just need to deal with the aftermath of the incident that'll probably take a toll on my hobby time. Regardless, I expect to do something hobby-related this week, so stay tuned ;)

[Brother Christopher]

An the newest, humble additions: a multi-melta Initiate and a model with no rules who, as I mentioned, now will be a Master of Ordnance for my crusade.

 

I find the multi-melta to be a fun weapon to paint - it has a lot of bits and pieces that you can paint to make them pop - I enjoyed working on this guy to the extent that I don't regret the time I sunk into the model.

 

 

Initially, the newly-appointed Master of Ordnance was supposed to be a member of 5-man proxy squad of Primaris Snipers or Intercessors with the Stalker Bolter Thingy; however, after the changes to snipers, I changed my mind about the squad and ended up with this conversion, that I felt was pretty cool (mixed and matched a couple of kits including the Heresy Chaplain guy, a pair of legs from a Devastator Squad, a custom heavy sniper rifle made out of a regular bolter, grav pistol and plasticard, a reclaimed SM Captain's helmet with the vox grille removed and a custom pose that I like, which is not something that I can often say about my conversions after a couple of months. While I still suck at painting faces, I must say that the photo is particularly cruel (due to the lighting) - in reality, the model is more hideously handsome ;)

 

Next up, I think I'll finish these guys that I probably started painting in 2019... While I'd prefer to move to more exciting and more Templary things (especially the Vanguard Veterans Sword Brethren with storm shields should be my priority, considering the good rules they have*, but I think that given their state, these heavy weapon Initiates deserve to finally become properly battle-ready!

 

 

* Well, in the past, I missed numerous occasions to paint and use models that had great rules (Storm Talons, Centurions, Bikes, Sternguard Veterans, now VV). I regret that since I got some of those models because they were all the rage at one time or another and now I'm stuck with more models to paint (some of which I don't particularly like). This probably is the source of a large portion of my current frustration with the Primaris - I had gotten models that I didn't use them in the game, 'wasted' money on them, hoarded them for Emperor-knows how long on the assumption that the Space Marines are a constant, while I could've not bothered and get the new and 'better' Primaris years later. It's not a matter of money now, it's the matter of time - with the current state of my collection, I can't invest in new models while I still need to paint more than a hundred Marines (this year, I managed to paint 12 [say: twelve], so the pace of progress isn't great). At the same time, I can't seem to sell any of the the models I have since 95% of them are vital to the Force Organisation Chart that I were filling in over the years (some are already painted so sellign them is out of the question, some are already converted so I invested time into them and don't want to get rid of them, while others could be expendable, but they fill out squads of fives or full sets of specialists (say 3 plasma gunners; 4 lightning claw marines). It happens so that I'm a bit OCD and I really need to have 20 chainsword Marines and 30 bolter Marines; 16 and 27 respectively are not squad sizes I'm comfortable with having.

[Urkh]

I really like the Maltese cross you put on the master's left knee, as well as the half cross on the cape. All my capes are so bland compared to yours.

 

I also stacked all my sprues that I have to paint and the stack was as tall as my table. Sounds like we're in a very similar boat.

[Brother Christopher]

Thanks for noting these details, I'm glad you like them ;) I like painting them - they give the impression that models have more character.

 

I can almost see the stack of sprues that you have! I am happy to report that I've dealt with most of mine - I only need to assemble 5 Vanguard Vets and finish 3 Centurions and a Stalker/Hunter tank. Having said that, the situation was way different way back in 2019 - that's when I started the Great Assembly^TM and made great strides towards actually finishing my army (and ruining much of its resale value, which brings me to my today's predicament).

 

Good luck with your hobby endeavours!

[Brother Christopher]

I'd like to ask for your advice. Apart from the devastators from the picture above, I've started working on some count-as Intercessors, a 5-man squad. These will be regular marines, with the BT upgrade sprue tabards, on 32 mm bases (as you can clearly see, for the bulk of my regular forces, I use 24 mm bases) armed with Special Issue Bolters. To distinguish them further, I want to paint them with a distinct colour scheme, more or less identical for the entire squad. They will have white helmets (since I hate painting white, I never did that for my power-armoured troops) a DA upgrade sprue shoulder pad with the sword icon on their right shoulder (to show that they form a single squad; I want to do a similar thing with the UM Tyranic War Veterans) and identical colour of bolters (I'm thinking red or yellow, as a homage to the more careless, ridiculous and joyful times of the old editions of 40k).

 

I am also considering painting one or two (I'm leaning towards one - it might mean that the members of the squad took some kind of a vow) arm of each marine in the squad white. On the one hand, I suppose it'd be a nice way to introduce variety to my miniatures and a way to try something new out; on the other hand, I'm worried it'd be a bit too Raven-Guardy (they do that, with white arms, right? I'm a bit rusty on the lore). My question is this: what do you think? One or two arms white or stick to the black colour scheme, while only keeping white helmets?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I share your concern with the white arm, for similar reasons to yours. The white head is fine however, very Veteran Black Templar.

 

Maybe paint one just to see?

[Marshal Laeroth]

I am with Brother Adelard here...the arms make them much less BT and more RG.

[Medjugorje]

each crusade is different. why not. 

[Brother Christopher]

Thanks for the feedback! I think I'll try it out on one miniature (for my peace of mind), but now I'm leaning towards not doing it and keeping the changes down to the white helmets. I suppose I'll repaint my not-Hellblasters' helmets, too so that all of my marines on 32 mm bases have the white helmets showing that they're veterans (not Sword Brethren), hence the +1 attack in their profile.

[Brother Christopher]

This weeks, during breaks in work, I'll be working on my not-Intercessors. The work I'm doing definitely is something outside my comfort zone; I managed to basecoat the helmets white and the receivers and hand guards on the special issue bolters yellow. With my extremely limited experience with these paints, I messed the bright colours up pretty badly; however, I'm focusing on my goal, which is a painted army, and try not to worry too much about such details; in a group photo or on the table, the models should look okay. I suppose that the recent heat may have affected my paints a bit - with the temperature in my room, I feel that I'm struggling to get the consistency right. The paints dry up pretty quickly while on the brush and thinning them down without affecting their coverage is more difficult than usual. I'm glad that I recently got some light grey brush-on undercoat - I can't imagine getting the colours right starting from a black base.

 

For the bolters, I decided to paint all the guns using the same colour scheme. All bolters are special issue bolters from the plastic Sternguard kit: the main body of the gun (receiver and hand guards), as well as the mount of the scopes will be yellow, the magazines and front parts of the scopes will be black, while the remaining parts (barrel, mid- and rear sections of the scopes, the lower receiver) will be silver; for the ornaments, I'll be sticking to silvers, reds and blacks, too.

 

I'm looking forward to having something concrete to share with you; so far, I only have half-finished bodies of the marines and bolters which are between 20% and 40% finished.

[Smoke Frog]

Really great work on that cloak on your Master of Ordnance! 

[Brother Carpenter]

+1 for the cloak.

You could do something like the white templar on our John Blanche's 3ed cover. If you want to do some colour variations. Or maybe a red templar.

[Brother Christopher]

This week was quite strange when it comes to hobby stuff. It was fun and tedious at the same time. I were working on the bolters for my squad and it was absolutely absorbing - time didn't matter, I just wanted to paint them the way I envisaged them. This was the fun part. The tedious part was that I failed at painting - the yellows turned out amateurish (the layer of paint appears thick) and, on top of that, I kept on ruining my work: I were rubbing the paint off extreme edges (rear of the bultgun, leather straps) while handling the bolters. I imagine that it's partly due to the properties of the new, grey brush-on undercoat I used. In order to preserve my work, after I finished painting the guns to a relatively satisfying standard, I varnished them, but by doing so I ruined parts of them once more. This constant redoing, on top of the fact that I spent what seems like a week of work (though I only had 15-20 minutes to spare each day, in the sheer number of working days seemed excessive for the output) made me feel a bit frustrated. Regardless, except the final touch ups, that I intend to deal with after I glue the boltguns to my marines' arms, these are done.

 

 

And here's a WIP photo of the future users of these bolters; all members of the 5-man squad will have tabards and white helmets to go alongside the yellow boltguns. I also decided to paint the 'exhausts' on the backpacks silver, just for fun.

 

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The bolters are beautifully painted. Are they yellow because they're gifts from the Imperial Fists Chapter, or did the Templars paint them yellow to honor their predecessors, to show solidarity with other Sons of Dorn?

[Majkhel]

Hey brother :)
Lovely works again. I'm always amazed with all the extra bling and embellishments you paint on your marines. 

I do not see much in terms of ruining in the final versions of the boltguns. Yellow looks nice and bright on the picture. Boltguns will surely become a great spot colour on the marines holding them.

Admittedly, yellow is a b**ch of a colour to paint in general and when using a brush - a near-nightmare at times. I have (forcibly) learned to be patient with it and that's the main trick I think.
You have to build it up in thin layers and it is actually really important to keep the layers thin. This will take time. No "2 thin coats" here - there can be anything between 5 and 15 thin coats. You just have to endure it (perhaps that's why it's the chosen colour for Imperial Fists   )
Grey and in general light neutral undercoats help a ton.
I can also recommend using pins or some blue-tac equivalent in order to attach the piece being painted to some kind of handle. Rubbing-off those thin coats is really easy unfortunately.
What primer you used that has given you so much trouble?

[Brother Christopher]

The bolters are beautifully painted. Are they yellow because they're gifts from the Imperial Fists Chapter, or did the Templars paint them yellow to honor their predecessors, to show solidarity with other Sons of Dorn?

 

Thanks mate! These are painted in a gesture of solidarity with the noble First Founding chapter - a tribute to the Imperial Fists of old.

 

Hey brother

Lovely works again. I'm always amazed with all the extra bling and embellishments you paint on your marines. 

 

I do not see much in terms of ruining in the final versions of the boltguns. Yellow looks nice and bright on the picture. Boltguns will surely become a great spot colour on the marines holding them.

 

Admittedly, yellow is a b**ch of a colour to paint in general and when using a brush - a near-nightmare at times. I have (forcibly) learned to be patient with it and that's the main trick I think.

You have to build it up in thin layers and it is actually really important to keep the layers thin. This will take time. No "2 thin coats" here - there can be anything between 5 and 15 thin coats. You just have to endure it (perhaps that's why it's the chosen colour for Imperial Fists   )

Grey and in general light neutral undercoats help a ton.

I can also recommend using pins or some blue-tac equivalent in order to attach the piece being painted to some kind of handle. Rubbing-off those thin coats is really easy unfortunately.

What primer you used that has given you so much trouble?

For once the quick and badly exposed photo helped! Admittedly, I feel that they look better in the photo than they really do - a nice change of things. The ruined parts - mainly on the straps - aren't visible in the image above due to highlights (not highlights as in painting, but highlights as in overexposed photo) - if you take a really close look, you'll notice the grey chipping best visible on the strap on the top-left bolter. Regardless, that'll be an easy fix.

 

You're also absolutely right about getting yellow paint to work or at least making it usable; my lack of experience with the colour was quite evident. I think I'll just refrain from using it in the future in my Warhammer projects (minus a Sicaran Battle Tank with large sections in yellow in hour of the Imperial Fists; the tank is supposed to be a relic from the Heresy).

 

For the primer, I used Vallejo grey Surface Primer (70.601) - it worked extremely well for me before this project; however, admittedly I have never handled the primed bits so excessively in fingers - they were either whole miniatures painted using a handle or Terminator helmets and/or shoulder pads that I blu-tacked in place. Regardless of my most recent poor experience, I found the Vallejo primers (I also have the black one) to work very well - they are a great fix when I need a light basecoat or just need to prime one or two models and/or bits and don't feel like using my go-to rattle-can spray primer.

[Majkhel]

Well I wouldn't discard the yellow colour totally. It can add some really nice vibrant spot colour to otherwise dark miniatures. It just requires some specific approach and is worth mastering especially if you plan on painting a tank with it (without an airbrush?? You're crazy, you know that? :D )
Seriously though, for large area coverage (like armour plates) I would heartily recommend looking into the some large brush stippling techniques like what Bohun or Artis Opus are doing. I can help you a little as well if you need. Although I haven't been applying yellow this way, I've been making some yellow bits from time to time (I think you saw my Storm Speeder and Firestrike turret?)

That is all brush and patience

As long as you are patient and accept the multiple layer approach, it will will eventually build up enough colour for a satisfying result. With brush it is of utmost importance that layers are thin and smooth. This smoothness is more important than coverage - it will only take a little mistake to create a rough or granular surface or a brush trail that will look bad. On the other hand coverage will certainly build up over time so no hurry.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Did you paint the guns separately as they are in the pics? I often paint separate components like that by supergluing them to a piece of sprue, so that I have something to hold, which isn't the part I'm painting itself. (You can also clamp sprues lengths into GW painting handles, which is even more comfortable.) in this case, I would have glued at the wrist. Or, and this is a new trick I learnt. When I drill out the barrels, I then insert a needle into the barrel, and then mount the needle into a cork.

[Brother Christopher]

I am finally getting around to start a painting project I've had on my mind for now probably couple of years. In my teens, I used to be very into Star Wars: Republic Commando and I want to pay homage to Delta Squad. I want to paint a squad of five Mk IV armoured marines (my proxy Incursors/Infiltrator?) and try to recreate the custom patterns on the armour of the members of Delta Squad (plus I need to find a fifth stand-in, probably Rex from Clone Wars, Atin from the Republic Commando novels or the Mandalorian from the most recent SW TV series). I know that I want to limit the inspiration to the livery - I won't be going into conversions (like Scorch's backpack or, if I'll go with Rex as the fifth member, dual pistols) - these will be standard marines with heresy-era bolters. The thing I still haven't decided on is the base colour of their armour.

 

I could go with white to be more faithful to the original or I could go black to pay respect to the livery of the Black Templars.

 

What are your thoughts? Black or white? I think that I won't be doing any chapter insignia (crosses on shoulder pads), so black would be better to show that they are Black Templar Space Marines. Also I have way more experience with black, so painting them wouldn't be such a hassle. On the other hand we have the white base which is faithful to the source material and will probably make the custom livery pop even more. Decisions, decisions...

 

Edit: It seems that I found a solution to the problem I expressed above. I think I'll paint the members of my Delta Squad grey. That way, the squad will not be in stark contrast to the rest of the army and, at the same time, the Star Wars theme will be more apparent. While I came up with this idea, I'm not yet completely sold on it so comments are still welcome!

Edited August 2, 2021 by Brother Cristopher

[Marshal Mattias]

It's basically a "nod" to Delta, right? So all black with the personal markings in white could be enough to make them obviously Templar while being recognisable to a fan. I always favour subtlety when making pop-culture references in something as established as 40k. The grey sounds cool, but I don't know if it's so much a bit-of-both as not-much-of-either.

[Brother Christopher]

Marshal Mattias, thank you for the feedback. It kind of helped me back on track. I will do a test model and decide whether to go with the black or grey base (right now, I'm sort of leaning towards the black variant - after all, these are the Black Templars).

 

In the meanwhile, I'm done with one of the most intensive two weeks of my freelance career. I am definitely not on schedule when it comes to painting but I managed to finish two of my 5 not-Intercessors.

 

 

 

 

Two down, two-and-a-half to go. Hopefully, I'll be back to my usual work routine this week and have more time for painting miniatures. I'd really like to get work on the Delta Squad started.

[Majkhel]

Those 2 have a really distinct look with the yellow bolters. Very nice