My Sisters (Order of the Vermilion Veil)

[tvih]

Hot damn! Looks like Argent Shroud is going to be my Order of choice after all, having figured I'd do about 50/50 with Ebon Chalice and Argent Shroud. I bought a silver spray, mainly to make painting vehicle tracks less of a hassle (with brushes it's such a pain). But figured I'd try some AS Seraphim models. Now, I've only done the silver basecoat + black wash so far, but it already looks so good that way. And so easily! Somehow I had the idea in my head that AS would be annoying to paint, perhaps because I was going to brush the silver on.

 

Too bad I painted my primary Canoness as Ebon Chalice already. Ugh! If I paint the black over with the GW metallics, not sure how similar the end result would be at this point. I suppose I'll have to try, because frankly somehow the black doesn't look as good on her as I hoped. Or maybe it's just that I'm subconsciously wishing for more variation on my models, with so many black-red-white Templars already!

 

Maybe I'll do some non-Argent Sisters, maybe not (well, there's Celestine obviously)... but most will be Argent by the looks of it. With any luck I'll have at least one model completely painted to show you later today, or at the very least tomorrow.

[tvih]

http://www.tvih.net/stuff/wh40k/seraphim1.jpg

 

Not 100% done, but getting there. Again kinda unhappy with the reds and whites, but overall I like her. I reckon going black/necron abyss/regal blue cloth would be easier since it's not such a pain in the butt to paint, but then they wouldn't be Aregent Shroud, now would they. As usual I'm slow as heck, with this taking me a good three hours to do. So, no fully painted army any time soon, same as with all my armies, even the BT are eternally WIP

 

Not sure what I'll do with the Seraphim bases though, as I'm not exactly a fan of them tiptoing on metal spikes. Might have to have them standing on rocks, rubble or something.

[tvih]

Having done the base silver + wash on all the Seraphim plus one power maul sister, I suddenly remembered one reason why I wasn't so sure of making Argent my primary Order originally - vehicles. Making them silver rather than black means I can't "hull-share" with my BTs without it looking "off". Also I haven't painted a metallic vehicle, so I'm not sure how it'll end up looking. While the spray + wash looks great on the infantry* I'm not so sure about the vehicles. Generally I haven't been a huge fan of GK vehicles for example, and of course who knows if mine will look anywhere near as good as the ones I've seen.

 

Of course I could paint the vehicles in Ebon Chalice style while the infantry is Argent Shroud given that there's no rules differences between the Orders or anything, but fluffwise that'd seem a bit strange too, I think :P

 

* So much so that I'm tempted to call them Order of the Living Statue and only paint some minor bits like the golden ones while leaving the cloth etc metallic, haha :D To expedite things I'll likely paint the cloth parts last anyway though, I just want the Sisters to be at least somewhat painted so I can start playing with them without having to use them unpainted.

[Templar1]

If it's about ease of painting, I highly recommend Army Painter basecoat spray. I love their reds and silvers. Colored primer is awesome, and saves a lot of time.

[tvih]

The silver spray I have seems very good as is, it seems to stick even to metal models better than the black primer that I have from the same brand. And it is cheap to boot, so that in itself is taken care of. It's just that I'm not necessarily a huge fan of "bare metal" vehicles. Something like this looks better than just using metallic paint and calling it done (well, obviously there's washing the recesses etc also), but I've no idea how that one is actually painted.

[Jacinda]

Looking good. They are now past the "ally" stage as you have a full, viable army there. You could use a few "counts-as" models for most games, like counting the multi-meltas as meltas if you wanted. Also, a whirlwind is a very common substitution for an Exorcist so I doubt anyone would care in the least if you used them.

[tvih]

Yeah, in at least three of the four games I've played with C:AS I proxied a Whirlwind as an Exorcist. Though I do want at least one actual Exorcist anyway, despite the cost and what I've heard is an annoying assembly as far as the metal parts go. Using two Exorcists, whatever the model, and perhaps throwing in an Inquisitor and/or some sort of Fortification would allow for a 1850-point list now. Not the most optimized one for sure, but a list nonetheless. If I order the Exorcist, I might need to get at least two more melta guns, as that'd allow for better arrangement into two combined arms detachments to allow me to utilize my model selection slightly better in said list. Would love a couple of them heavy flamers as well, but that'd take the total for Exorcist and those special weapons to 85€ already... ugh.

 

Regardless, now to get these darn things painted! It'll take forever, but at least it feels slightly less daunting now in the sense that the silver spray indeed seems far more resistant to being rubbed off the metal models while working on it as compared to the black primer I have - and the silver isn't even a primer! First stage is getting everything "silvered" and washed with Nuln oil, then painting the face and hair. Like that they're already table-worthy in my books, the "definition" is drastically improved compared to plain metal. Second stage will be the gold and other metallic as well as leather parts (pouches and holsters), then in the last stage the cloth and red weapon casings. And I suppose finally varnish to wrap it all up. And well, at some point I gotta look at the bases as well, but as is even my marines are on plain bases. But these slot bases are a bit of an eye sore!

[*Furyou Miko]

Sharp Sand is a relatively cheap and very good basing material.

 

I tend to undercoat in enamel these days. Acrylic just hates sticking to metal.

[Naminé]

You can always smush some green stuff into the slots of the bases too :p

[tvih]

Well, I did just order some Milliput, which could make the slot insertion more secure, and then do the actual basing on top of that. The Milliput should allow me to try some custom base details in general, but especially for the Seraphim.

 

As for the paint, all my sprays are oil-based, though not enamel. Still a bit odd that the silver seems to stick better than the black primer does, but I'll take it!

[tvih]

By the Emperor... looks like in my madness I ended up winning another eBay lot, consisting of what seems to be:

 

Flamer 1
Blessed Banner
Canoness
Repentia
Seraphim
Storm Bolter 1
Seraphim Superior with Power Sword
Superior with Power Sword
Superior with Plasma Pistol
9 bolters
Hospitaller
3 heavy bolter models' bodies (apparently no arms)

(+ some are missing backpacks)

 

The funny thing is that now the bolter Sisters will at least temporarily outnumber my BT Iniatiates :P Mostly I got interested in that lot for the Superior with Power Sword and the Blessed Banner, since I have neither of the two, nor the Hospitaller. Too bad the Seraphim Superior wasn't the plasma pistol + power sword one, I'd really want that one, but all the lots I've seen with it have been expensive.

 

While I got this lot for a quite reasonable price, it's a bit silly of me to get more bolters when I need the special weapons! In fact just earlier today I was going through a shopping list for new Sisters + battle conclave, and it's all the way up to ~180€ now  Apparently I just don't know when to stop!

 

With the heavy bolter models lacking their arms & armaments, I suppose I could try to convert melta models out of them since I'm so short on those. Now I have 8 of those darned bodies total, so having some more variation on them would be nice :P And I can do the conversion successfully, might be able to skip buying more meltas! I just have to somehow successfully manage to duplicate some forearms + hands to hold the weapons. Hopefully the Instant Mold + Milliput can help with that.

 

I suppose it's not so bad, unless the impossible happens and Sisters actually get (good) plastic models, at which point I'll whip myself (or have the Mistress of Pain model do it for me) for having so many metal duplicates 

[WarriorFish]

Seems more like divine intervention to me, the Emperor clearly has plans for those models. You'd best not disappoint Him ;)

[tvih]

Well, the ones that have paint on them - some are unpainted - do look terrible and in need of aid  I just hope there's not as many backpacks missing as I fear, as I can only count 11 regular backpacks and one jump pack, while there are 22 models. Would be a pain trying to make or source so many loose backpacks. Now if I also get the battle conclave as well as some of the other stuff, I'll end up above 2000 points I reckon.

Edited September 9, 2014 by tvih

[tvih]

Out of slight  boredom here's a picture sort of demonstrating some of the stages of how I'm going to paint all these Argent Shroud Sisters. Nothing new to those who have painted metallic color schemes before, I'm sure, but figured I'd put it here anyways.
 
http://www.tvih.net/stuff/wh40k/sisters-argent-painting-stages.jpg

Even just the silver spray basecoat does wonders for definition (not using a separate primer for now, since the silver spray seems to stick better than the primer does, as mentioned before). It's of course kind of a given that the silver paint has better definition than bare metal, but still, having pretty much just painted black basecoats it's quite the change of pace for me personally! Much easier to paint on since the details are so much easier to make out than on a black basecoat.

 

With the Nuln Oil wash applied the main armor areas are already done, with not much more effort than the black of my Templars (currently I don't highlight the blacks) while looking more three-dimensional for sure. Then it's just the detailing and cloths left, the latter being the most time-consuming and annoying part by far. I bought myself a new Vallejo white paint yesterday, hopefully it'll be nicer to work with than the GW ones.

 

Just stripped the old paint from the combi-flamer canoness today, she's certainly looking much "healthier" now than she did before eve if she's still mono-color for the time bieng  Still some models left to strip, but at least I have the proper stuff to do it with now after doing some shopping yesterday, so it's fairly easy. I didn't strip the Seraphim models as they only had a thin albeit slightly worn black basecoat, but some of these other models had far too much paint on to simply paint on top.

[Marshal Mattias]

Nice, might I ask where you got the spray? It sounds well-worth trying out. :)

[tvih]

It's by a brand called Maston (the exact product is this). It's a Finnish brand, so I don't know if it's available in England. I've mostly been using Maston sprays nowadays for their cheap price. Their matte black is totally indistinguishable from GW Chaos Black at about 40% of the price. Too bad I already went through at least 4 cans of GW Chaos Black before finding this alternative :P

 

Since this silver spray works so well as a metal model primer, I'm thinking I'll use it for my metal marine models as well, and then just spray the regular black spray on top of that, should work nicely.

 

I figure most silver sprays would look about the same of course, but hard to say anything about if they'd stick to the metal as well as this particular brand's silver seems to.

[deathhasdignity]

I use army painter silver spray, works great

[tvih]

For the latest batch of Sisters the tally comes to 22 models with 13 power packs... with one of the missing ones being a jump pack. So in total I'm missing 2 jump packs, and 12? regular packs. Sheesh, silly people and their inability to keep their bits together ;) In this lot it s eems it's all the unpainted ones that don't have their packs. I got the Milliput already as well, so I guess at some point I indeed gotta try if I can make usable regular backpacks that way. Not holding any hope for making a jump pack.

[deathhasdignity]

Silver on mine but I do like a heavy wash to dirty it down

 

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d117/deathhasdignity/Adepta%20Sororita/Troops/EF8276C4-A943-4B3C-890F-FE3FD9E01393_zpsvnqtd8sp.jpg

 

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d117/deathhasdignity/Adepta%20Sororita/Troops/IMG_4563_zps853fa2b6.jpg

 

Rest of my Sisters is at the link below

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/292884-deathhasdignitys-modeling-painting-work-merged/  

Edited September 16, 2014 by deathhasdignity

[Templar1]

Looking great dude! Can't wait to see more. The red and silver combination is awesome.

 

MOAR METAL SISTERS.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm39xuafmM1qj7t9h.gif

[tvih]

So! Since the last roster update, I've added at least another combi-flamer Canoness and a plasma pistol+power sword Seraphim Superior from eBay, and Heavy Flamer, Simulacrum and Exorcist as new. I'm determined to at least undercoat all the currently vowed models during Saturday.

 

I'm hoping I can manage a second vow yet if I can manage to finish to first one within the next two weeks. It'd likely have the Exorcist and all my remaining Canonesses (I think 3 at least) as its contents for maximum points for effort.

[Duke Danse Macabre]

Nice work on the gold and red there mate.

Another spot colour though for the cabling may really help make them pop though in my eyes and the amour is such a dmininating aspect of the model making the majority one tone.

[tvih]

Meh, more comments on those than my models :P Hehe. With the ETL vow complete I need to take some better pics of the newly finished models at some point - once I find my darn camera anyway.

 

Not entirely happy with some things about the models. One wider-spread problem is the reds. My Red Gore was kinda dried out, so I got a Vallejo Gory Red to take its place. But sadly it seems that while the shade of red is otherwise quite close as expected, it seems to be veeeery shiny, and thus also appears lighter than it should. It basically looks metallic, which isn't so bad on the weapon casings I suppose, but not so good for all the red cloth.

 

Quite happy with how Celestine turned out. Better than I expected. Biggest problem is the huge cloak thing, since I couldn't pait the cherubs right (I suck at painting flesh) and also because of the very shiny red (mostly did the coloring the same as in the official GW model pic in their web store). I've been thinking of just using a regular Sisters jump pack for her, but problem is I already have more Seraphim than I have jump packs. Like 11 Seraphim and 8 jump packs or something like that.

 

I went with Dwarf Bronze instead of Gold for her armor's base color, because my Gehenna Gold seems to have gone completely rotten, and the Bronze is reasonably close. I must say I was tempted to stay with the silver base given how much easier that would have been, but decided against it in the end, despite being in quite the hurry to finish.

 

The bird in her left hand didn't come out quite right, nor did the flowers or whatever they are in her sword arm. I made the flowers white, but I'm wondering if I should add some differently colored ones in there because as is it looks kinda odd.

[tvih]

Here's one pic I took of Celestine earlier so you can see what I was talking about:

[*Furyou Miko]

The reason it looks odd is because there are no flowers that have white middles - even roses hide a dark stamen. You need to either add shading or paint the sex parts.