ETL II - WarriorFish's Tanks

[Kierdale]

Whoa! Those new photos show the camo pattern far better!

Intriguing.

Could you take some shots showing the camo more? A single mini up close for example. It looks great.

[WarriorFish]

I tried to get better pictures, fortunately the sun has obliged and started shining nicely. Better is a subjective term though

Hopefully that shows the three colours properly. The base green is Knarloc Green with a good black wash, with the details like collars, pouches etc being Catachan Green. The camouflage colours are Green Grey, Brown Violet (Flames of War range, the US Marine colours box if I remember right) and Chaos Black.

I also tried to get some pictures of the finished Enginseer with mixed results:

[GodEmperorOfMankind]

Excellent work there my friend

[Warhead01]

Wonderful camo!

[Kierdale]

Yes, that camo is really something!

An pattern of your own design or a real-world one that you found?

[WarriorFish]

Thanks guys, I was a little concerned about the camo as it's been a long time since I painted it last but it turned out fine. I remember getting the ideas for some of the colours from something I read years back which is why I got some Flames of War paints, but the pattern is something I conjured up myself. I wanted something that wasn't too difficult to paint and it just sort of fell together while experimenting, I'm glad you like it

 

I like how it looks when squad upon squad of Guardsmen deploy for battle and I've only ever lost a unit in terrain once I'm still unsure if it will transfer to tanks properly though, maybe greatly enlarged with thicker lines perhaps? I'm a little wary of buggering something up by trying

[WarriorFish]

My vow is now complete! Perhaps a little later in the day than planned but I managed to get some fairly good pictures thanks to careful use of my lamp The Ork skull turned out well, the gold tooth (toof?) helps him stand out a little.

So before I post up the completion I'd like to thank everyone who's posted (including the lost posts!) for all the encouragement and motivation. It helped me keep painting no matter what So I dedicate these pictures to you - it's not a coincidence that I spend most of my B&C time in the Guard forum lately

I'm going to take a small break from painting now, but thanks to the ETL the fire burns brightly so it won't be long before I get back to work again! I'll sort out and re-upload the lost pictures later this week and do my best to properly describe them as before so the record of the magnetising and the vow progress is available for anyone looking in the future.

After that I'll have to decide what to do with this topic. I'll probably return to it for completenesses sake when I start trying out weathering and tank camouflage

[Kierdale]

Congratulations!

Some really, really good work in there.

[WarriorFish]

Flattery will get you nowhere Kier! I'm really glad I took part in the ETL it's been a lot of fun watching everyone's progress and getting stuck in to some models. Even the troublesome Valkyrie kit was worth the hassle. I'd not painted any Guard stuff for a long time before this - the Veteran I posted was done years ago - so it was nice to see that I've improved since then :)

 

In fact it might have worked so well that my planned break from painting probably won't happen... :P

[WarriorFish]

Ok, now the ETL is all done and I've got a bit of spare time I should complete the topic with the content lost when the B&C went down. Hopefully this is everything, it's a little hard trying to figure out what went where!

Before/after filing down of gunner arms:

The provided weapon handle arms are from the vehicle kit so don't fit properly to the HBs, but it's a pretty simple fix of filing them down on top and bottom.

Drilled out weapons and magnetised:

The nose weapons are easily magnetised, but the missiles need a bit more aligning so I just chopped a bit out of the middle of one of the fins prior to lining them up properly.

Before/after filing down of FW resin lascannons:


Magnetised lascannons:


Magnetised missiles:


Magnetised rocket pods:


Painting up the crew and bits:


Close up on pilots:

I'm still pleased with how the crew turned out, the flesh method will be applied to the rest of the army at some point in the future :)

[WarriorFish]

I split the update up a bit to make it easier to keep track of what I was doing. Here's the completed Vendetta images

Completed Gunner 1:


Completed Gunner 2:


Completed Rear:


I was all prepared to have to take the gunners out and in for games but they can easily fit in by rotating them a little which is nice. Makes all the hassle in doing them slightly less of a pain


Almost completed:


Cockpit close up:


Cockput close up:


Quite a few lenses to do, but it's all worth it in the end. A great kit albeit with terrible assembly.


Cockpit front on:


Completed Valkyrie:

I elected not to use the resin Vendetta nose bit as I didn't think it'd suit the model when it's in the Valkyrie configuration and the piece itself didn't fit very well. As I preferred the original nose array too it seemed an obvious decision!

Completed Vendetta with magnetised bits:


This is the picture that finished my first vow I've not yet used it in battle but I will soon

I figured there wasn't much point on putting up the "before" pictures for the Guardsmen as they're just undercoated, so all that's missing is the experimental GS berets. I went with the middle one in the end and I'm happy with how they turned out for a first attempt.

They need a bit more trimming from this picture but in the future I'll make sure to make them very thin and they should turn out nicely. The little aquila is way beyond me though, but a small bit of white painted on in the approximate shape of it works fine

GS berets:

There we have it! This should be the complete chronicle of my ETL II contributions. Please let me know if I've missed anything

[hendrik]

that's one heck of a clear paintjob on that valkyrie/vendetta!

i have to warn youabout the gunners though, i build mine just like yours and quickly found out the mounting bar of the heavy bolters is prone to break off!(and almost impossible to glue back into place!

[WarriorFish]

My skill with the brush increases with the size of it, unfortunately the opposite is also true

 

That's a bit annoying to hear, as if the gunners couldn't get any worse! Hopefully they'll be ok safely tucked away inside the body...

 

The Vendetta is standing at the "pinnacle" of my painting right now as I've yet to experiment with weathering techniques. It's on my list of things to do though, I've just got to play until I find something I like as I won't commit unless I'm really sure.

 

The only trouble with this is that experimenting tends to lose out to more exciting and fun parts of the hobby like new models. As a "table top" standard though I'm quite happy with this level for the moment