"Unto the anvil of war!" - A Salamanders 3rd Company WIP

[Refy LS]

Hello, all! I'm a new member here, and frankly only just getting back into the hobby, and completely new to 6th Ed. Anyway, this will be my first step back into 40k, and I thought Salamanders would make a good revisit as they were my first army.

 

Since starting out with Salamanders a few years back, I have picked up a bit more painting skills, but I'm still improving. Thus these guys should be a practice in skill, especially freehand: a task that I have always enjoyed but never been too good at, and it is prevalent throughout this army.

 

Anyway, at the moment I am aiming for a 625pt list of a Librarian, 2 Tac Squads (one Melta-focused and another Flamer), and 5 Melta/Flamer Sternguards in a Drop Pod. I'm aiming to get everything done by late December, which should be interesting. Only time will tell.

 

Later on I will expand into a larger list of the 3rd Company, loosely based off of Nick Kyme's Tome of Fire series. But that is for later.

 

Anyway, here is what I have so far:

 

http://i.imgur.com/gq1k5YS.png

 

First Tactical Squad (In Progress)

 

http://i.imgur.com/I2k1yWI.png

 

Promethean Cult Symbols on Shoulder Pads

 

http://i.imgur.com/0CLwbEE.png

 

Some other details

 

http://i.imgur.com/RDESngS.png

 

The 3rd Company Symbol (Which I only have to paint about another 19 times... practice makes perfect, I guess?)

 

http://i.imgur.com/SsjwNf8.png

 

Sternguard Firedrakes (My first try at GSing, but I'm pretty happy with it. The rest of the squad is still to be assembled)

 

Next to come should be the other 3 Sternguards as well as some progress on the rest of the Tac Squad. Hopefully some better pics to come soon too.

[BrotherCaptainArkhan]

If that is truly your first attempt at greenstuffing, it's an extremely solid job and you should be very pleased. The cloaks look like they'll paint up very well indeed.

 

Great stuff so far on the painting, well done on the freehand! You must have a lot of patience to go through each individual Marine's company insignia that way; I really like the one Marine with the hammer iconography in place of his squad markings. Very keen to see where you take this log! They look fantastic, but keep striving to improve and you'll probably be churning out truly outstanding stuff in a few months. Keep posting :)

[Squeaky]

Like Arkhan said for your first use of GS then that's good job at it scales. Some nice touches on the painting as well with the hammer and fire. 

 

Have a look at this for doing two tutorials that are quite help for you possibly. 

 

1st one is just about clocks and making and shaping :) 

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/how-to-sculpt-greenstuff-cloaks-and.html

 

2nd is about scales and how to achieve different effects :) 

 

http://museonminis.com/baffos-sculpting-table-04-scaly-skins/

 

Hope I don't seem pushy. 

[Kobrakei]

These guys are looking good, and your GS cloaks are great! With regards to the painting, I would suggest slightly thinning your paints down, as they look a tiny bit thick. It's not like the thickness is ruining the model, so please don't think I'm disparaging the finish Also, how are you using your brush when highighting as some of the highlighting looks too wide in parts. I find parts such as elbows particularly hard, so I tend to do a wide highlight, and then use the original colour to thin down the highlight later on if that helps. On more obvious edges I use the side of the brush which allows more control and helps to prevent wobbles.

Keep it up, and I'm especially looking forward to seeing those Sternguard done

[Refy LS]

@BrotherCaptainArkhan

Thanks! And technically this GS isn't technically my first... I tried making one of the cloaks for the Sternguards previously but it really didn't turn out well, so I ripped it off and made the new ones you see now. I don't really have any good tools for GSing either, just a hobby knife and a small flathead screwdriver... I'm thinking of getting some clayshapers though.

 

And I'm glad you like the freehand; it takes a lot of time to do (a process I am hoping to improve on and make faster), but it is fun to give each marine some character. The Hammer design is my favorite too.

 

@Squeaky

Thanks for the links, especially the cloaks one. Any constructive criticism is welcome. :D

 

I think what I need to improve is the shape of the scales, which are really flat, but I'm not sure how to do that. I'll give those links a read later.

 

@kobrakei

I think my main downfall for the paint is the layer of Warpstone Glow, which I might need to water down. Unless you are talking about the freehand, which I don't like watering down because I find it a little hard to get the right consistency. As for highlighting, I just have a pretty shaky hand. :P

[chaplainmikey]

A very good start so far, nice work on all the freehand symbols and flames!

 

Mike.

[Refy LS]

A few updates this time. I haven't done any painting, but I assembled the remaining 3 Sternguards, save for the cloaks. Thus I still haven't attached the backpacks, and they are held on with blu-tack for now. Hopefully I will get around to finishing up the Tactical Marines and then moving on to these guys.

 

Anyway, first here is the regular Heavy Flamer Marine:

 

http://i.imgur.com/ZUwrqUn.jpg

 

He was pretty simple. The next one was where I found out the problem with the new Marine kits: hands are now pre-attached to the guns, which made this guy a bit of a pain to make. I also had to use some GS to get his arm right, so that's proving out to be useful to have.

 

http://i.imgur.com/4SfASja.jpg

 

And the Sergeant. I used the torch thing from one of the LotD marines I had around and pinned it to the back pack.

 

http://i.imgur.com/tWSYHh8.jpg

 

Next on my list is to make cloaks for all the Sternguards and then finish painting the freehand on my tac marines. Hopefully I should get in another update soon.