Loyalty and Mayhem - Aspiration

[Pearson73]

He was a slaughterer.

King of the arena.

A red terror.

That was before.

Before the daemon.

Now?

He's unstoppable.

A monster.

Thanks brother, the extra size brings a few challenges matching the scale, but is also very rewarding with the extra space to play around with.

[deathspectersgt7]

Man you have stepped up your modeling . 

[Vairocanum]

Awesome stuff, really liking your primaris conversions! I really like the blend of mutations with armor, looking forward to seeing more!

[hushrong]

I like he new, twisted gladiator! Definitely one of the best uses of a stormcast's body I've seen to date!

[Pearson73]

Aspirants.

These warriors of dark glory.

Imbued with terrible power.

Will they claim their prize?

Claim their mastery?

Will they become Exalted?

Or will they fail?

Become mastered?

Become broken?

And so concludes the work I've done on these seekers of eternal mastery and power, it's an idea I'm very happy with and also one I feel is currently well executed. There will certainly be more Aspirants joining the ranks in the future and some paint hitting the existing three, though I must admit I'm worried my skills won't be sufficient to display them as I would like, but I guess we'll see.

Thanks for the encouragement folk, as mentioned, these bigger kits really do help with the conversions. Another aid is the fact that the kits I used were all the free learn to paint models GW's been dishing out in store, so I had no apprehensions about accidentally ruining the models or inhibitions about cutting them up.

[hushrong]

Free minis are the best test subjects :devil:

 

Looking forward to seeing the triumvirate you have painted up. I am not a great painter myself but I rest assured knowing I can always strip the paint and start again. Just get some paint pots ready and a brush in hand. I also hope you do add to these guys in the future, these three are fantastic and more of them would be phenomenal!

[Pearson73]

It was as he had feared, time had not been kind to his artifice...

So after a long term away, I find myself embattled by a never-ending tide of exam revision, however, I've made the time to start laying down paint on the Aspirants, I must say I'm hitting a stumbling block here. They're clearly not finished yet, but already I feel that they're really missing something, perhaps more variations in colour are required? Another problem I've encountered is that I still really don't think my painting skills are up to what I want to achieve on these guys, the long gap since I last painted certainly hasn't helped, especially since I spend a lot of my time looking through the board, Insta and Pinterest at fantastically painted figures. I guess the plan is to find some old throw-away figures and practise new techniques to try and push my skills in the direction I want them to end up; if anyone has any tips or comments regarding the above, I'd be keen to hear them.

@hushrong - You're certainly right there brother and I definitely do intend to add to the ranks of the Aspirants, I'm already thinking about how a successful member could be presented - a warrior who has bound a daemon within his mortal frame and subdued it completely, so that it is a mere extension of his will and no longer a source of corruption. To me this mastery would indicate a lack of the usual warping and damage we see on the classical possessed astartes.

[hushrong]

Purple looks nice and it’s great to see it on the aspirant. I don’t know if it’s the lightning but did you do some highlighting? I think that will help make it pop-pop! Looking forward to more!

[Brother Lunkhead]

Great work I think hushrong has a good point about highlighting. I think you could easily get away with bolder highlights. Normally, I don't care for very bold highlighting, but I think they would suit your figure quite nicely.

[Vairocanum]

Looking good so far! Highlights sounds like a good plan, or if you're feeling adventurous a little bit of light blue here and there? Good luck with exams!

[Pearson73]

Thanks for the kind words and advice chaps, I did try a bit of highlighting on the winged aspirant, but I think I'd agree that they could be pushed further to add some pop; I think the armour plates of the Stormcast-based aspirant will provide a good surface to practise my highlighting too. I would like to work in a bit of turquoise as that's one of the force's spot colours, I imagine that possessed warriors have a good excuse for glowing eyes and I'm considering adding runes of binding to their armour and parchment, turquoise could come in here too?

 

@Vairocanum Cheers! Was a little jealous to see your's are over with for this semester.

[Radiation]

They look great Brother, especially the conversion work. I think the wings and organic mutations could be a different color, like maybe pink or grey or green flesh tones, to differentiate from the purple armor plates. Also maybe add some black to the armor plates like the power fist, chest plate, backpacks, or shoulder pads. The black could be part of your warband unless you want to stay completely true to the all purple scheme.  Your painting skills look great, just keep the paint watered down and build the layers slowly over time. They already look hella cool so just keep going!

[hushrong]

I wonder if genestealer purple would work out. I tried painting a few of my EC with Naggaroth Night over black, then a druchii violet watch, followed by xereus purple, highlight by genestealer purple. It wasn't mind blowing but it was a nice enough purple to highlight with right out of the pot.

[Pearson73]

Our hearts are cold, our minds are clear.

Only our rage burns incandescent.

Eradicate the traitors.

Whilst we try figure out some fixes and recipes for the Aspirants, here's a five-man plasma support squad for my loyalists, they just need a bit more paintwork on the bases and insignia on the shoulders, though I've still not decided on their emblems...

@Radiation - Thanks for the support brother, converting is definitely my favourite part of the hobby, I certainly agree that the mutations and flesh get a bit lost against the purple armour, so a change of colour could work well. I originally chose the current colour to match my daemonettes, though I was never thrilled with their appearance anyway... @Warriorfish's Daemon Prince over in his Sunder blog has a much more natural, fleshy appearance, which I'm contemplating 'borrowing', I've a few Orc/k boys lying around who'll be used for skin recipe try-outs. I'm not sure black is a colour I'd like to incoperate into the warband, I'm focussing more on purple backed by turquoise, silver and pink at the moment, though thanks for the suggestion!

@hushrong I'll look into a similar method, currently washing Druchii Violet over Xereus Purple, I've got a few Black Reach marines floating around which will be excellent fodder for recipe testing.

[Vairocanum]

Looking good! Like the sergeant a lot, the iron warriors torso works great! 

 

Exams had me sleeping only 3-4 hours a day so it was sorta rough but I guess I am glad that it's over so soon this time. Hope your studying and hobbying go well!

[hushrong]

Snuck in one of those sweet DG plasma guns! And when you talk about emblem do you mean like a squad marking?

 

The purple you have is great so you don't have to go reinventing the wheel. Looking back at your aspirants one other idea to maybe try is a different skin tone for the daemon flesh? Get away from the lighter purple to make it stand out just a bit more.

[Pearson73]

Thanks for the comments fellas, sadly I can't take claim for the basing and composition of the plasma squad as they were an eBay find - ten plasma support for less than a tenner! The remaining five squad members are in need of some leg-day treatment as they're old Forgeworld resin. Last night I found some old orc figures with lots of skin areas to practise some colours:

Typical green on the left and a more sallow look on the right, inspired by The Traitor's Malal Daemons:

Yellowy/bruised skin (looks darker in person):

At the moment, I'm leaning between the sallow and yellow tones, though I still want to try out a blue tone, though I feel it may be overpowering. For now, I've started recolouring the tentacle/mutations and they're a wash away from the yellow tone:

This experimentation has certainly been helpful and is reinforcing my preference for painting using washes and drybrushing over base coats, it suits my grimy loyalists very well and means I can avoid fine detail work and the threat of messing up thin lines. What are folks' thoughts on the above colours, do any stand out as a good match with the aspirants/rest of my warband?

[hushrong]

Nothing wrong with finding support for a bargain! As for paint tests I also like the something between that sallow and yellow paint job. It seems fleshy but very unnatural.

[Eldrick Shadowblade]

Wow! I really enjoy this thread. Subscribed! I especially like the small vignettes and prose along with the artwork that inspires your conversions. Very cool!

[Pearson73]

Thanks Eldrick Shadowblade I'm trying harder these days to come up with a thematic link for everything in my forces these days and weave a narrative for the whole warband, which links into what I'll be saying below. hushrong cheers man, I went for the midpoint and am happy with the results.

It's feels a long while since I've updated this thread, mostly due to uni exams and now that I've got more time for the hobby again, I've decided I want to do things slightly differently. Looking at my Chaos warband, I've become increasingly disappointed with the majority of the options GW gives us, quite possibly because I've started seeing Primaris around more and have, therefore, decided to remodel the majority of the group. In my last few posts, you'll have seen a more narrative theme building up including some of the art that has inspired me and this is something that I wish to continue. This, combined with many of the more themed threads on the site, has convinced me to separate my thread into two new, narrative based threads with smaller, but (hopefully) more frequent updates and more information regarding my two armies and their contexts. This thread will, I think, live on as a place where I can add one-offs or ask for advice on improving aspects of my skills, as I wish to present fully built models (pre- and post-paint) in the new threads only.

I have nothing concrete to reveal just yet, but I hope to change that very soon, so in the mean time I will leave you with this extract from my upskilling process:

Finally found the purpose of the otherwise useless yellow fineliner pen - making chainmail!

[hushrong]

Looking forward to the new plan going into effect. I love seeing the inspiration and the reasoning behind modeling minis. I'm sure I've said it before but as cool as these minis are without the fluff and my own ideas for them I'd lose interest in a heartbeat. And I know that goes for so many here on these boards. So I will be keeping an eye out for what you've got coming next!

 

Also, congrats with all the uni business! It's nice to get done with exams and actually feel like you can breathe without a book going to crush you.

[Vairocanum]

The chainmail is looking good! Great to hear that you'll be coming out with some more new stuff and congrats on finishing your exams! Canada has a 3 semester system so I got classes till early August for summer semester . 

[Pearson73]

So yesterday I finished painting my first model since back in April, a chaos predator for the ETL. I'm not fantastically happy with the result and discovered that painting tanks feels a heck of a lot different to painting infantry, so would be really keen to hear folks' tips on how to tackle them in future:

I think the larger plain surfaces cry out for something more and again I need to try out someedge highlights to add a bit more definition, otherwise, I would like to hear any further critiques or advice.

@hushrong - I couldn't agree more, it certainly engages me more in other peoples' threads too, when they include a little more context to their forces, my first testers for the new themes are coming together now, so it shouldn't be long now.

@Vairocanum - Thanks! I almost ended up coming over to Canada for my next year of studying, but will be heading to Germany instead, so I've dodged that third semester and get to keep my outlandishly long summer holiday.

[hushrong]

I haven't painted many tanks but that may be changing here soon. So I too am interested to hear from any vets on tips and tricks.

 

however, from what I see I do think highlighting will be a great boon to the paint job. Really show off the edges and give the tank some definition. I like the battle damage you have there on the front so maybe a bit more spread out intermittently would be a nice touch. Then maybe weather the beast to show that its put in its time in the suck.

 

And just being nit picky, a cupola for that hatch on the turret would be good. 

[Pearson73]

Cheers for the feedback mate, I started the battle damage and then wasn't too sure if it had worked well,  so just left it on the front, I think I probably over concentrated it a little and a wider distribution would improve things. No worries about being nit picky, the lack of cupola is most irritating, however both it and the rear section of the turret are nowhere to be found in my bits boxes, I'll definitely add one when I find one.