Quantico 75th Riflemen

[Mordian Glory]

Good job on the morters! They are a classic guard weapon and also fit in with the realism vibe you have with the army :)

[NerdyFellow]

Those Mortar Teams are awesome. I really love the bases. On my next project I'll be looking to develop my base-game. It just adds so much.

[War Angel]

Those Mortar Teams are awesome. I really love the bases. On my next project I'll be looking to develop my base-game. It just adds so much.

Thanks for the comments guys, for the bases I bought the kit for sprucing up your knight bases, and I’ve been slowly sprinkling some bits here and there. Follow that up with some sand and your good to go.

[War Angel]

Hey guys, almost done with my second squad. Didn’t really do the pattern the same way, but I guess it will be ok once there’s 270 of them. Wanted some opinions, can’t remember if I asked this before, should I just build everything so I can start playing? Here’s a picture of the army so far.

 

 

[WarriorFish]

They look great, variation in camouflage is fine nobody will notice :) As for assembly that's up to you and your group. Many prefer to play with painted armies only (as it gains the favour of the dice gods) but that's harder when you're starting out. As long as you're still painting models up that's the main thing, and the sooner you get gaming the better right? :D

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Great job on the guardsmen! Love the camouflaged uniforms.

[War Angel]

So here’s the veteran squad I’m working on. Not sure how I’ll do the mask’s, but I’m going to paint the right shoulder black, or black with yellow stripes.

 

[KGatch113]

OK let me give you some feedback. I used to work for GW and did paint scoring for both GT's and Golden Daemons. 

Love the color choice and camo scheme. Camo is hard to pull off at this scale. Too often it clutters up the figure. You've done a great job and have some great color choices. 

Uniform color selection with an army is important. I have an Inquisitorial warband on my desk right now that looks awful, because I chose dark grey uniforms and black weapons and another shade of grey for gear. The guys all look like dark grey blobs. Your guys stand out, and the lighter uniform color helps other items stand out. 

Now the bad: Mold lines. NO matter how great the paint job, mold lines on an army kill the model. I know its boring to scrape them off, and no one wants to sit there and do 200 guardsmen, but they look soooo much better. 

Here's a tip. Use the extra gear to conceal some of the mold lines. 

Which goes to my next piece of advice: The best figures all find a way to break up their patterns, usually by painting something else a contrasting or different color. Things like grenades, magazine packs, canteens etc. Anything you can hang on a belt etc. And yes, they need their mold lines cleaned as well. With practice you'll see which mold lines are noticeable and which are concealable. 

Other people have mentioned painting the accents, like the eagles etc. Like extra gear, this is an opportunity to add a nice detail to the model, and break up the monotony of the main color scheme. The key is not to make something garish. I would not go with metallics, for example. That kills off the point of wearing camo. But you can paint unit symbols etc on the shoulder pads, and IMHO you can add some color there. The US Army didn' stop wearing color patches until recently, and tbh having an American flag on their shoulders isn't going to stand out that much. 

While you don't have to paint for realism, you should paint to look good. I can't tell you how many times someone threw a red and black painted guard army with gold emblems that just looked awful. 

Your guys right now look great. With some careful highlighting and the right accents, and clean mold lines, you will have an awesome army that will be a pleasure to play against on the table! Keep up the great work!

Oh the guns....paint them black, and highlight with boltgun metal, and then weather them with bolt gun scratches. At this scale, painting them all metallic only works if you put a bunch of heavy washes over them, so its just easier to go black and highlight. 

[War Angel]

So, what your saying is paint the eagles black? There’s not much I can do o. The mold lines now, I’ve already started painting them. I think I’ll go olive drab for the grenades. I have gone back and painted the iso mats on the backpacks a lighter shade.

 

You guys keep saying to highlight, but I already dry brushed the armor parts, I don’t know if it’s just not showing up or if there needs to be more.

[Venix]

Not sure how I’ll do the masks

I would use a contrasting color, a cool light blue with a white highlight to stand out against the browns, or a warmer color with a bright pigment like orange with yellow highlights.

 

Alternatively a bright green could look interesting.

[War Angel]

 

Not sure how I’ll do the masks

I would use a contrasting color, a cool light blue with a white highlight to stand out against the browns, or a warmer color with a bright pigment like orange with yellow highlights.

 

Alternatively a bright green could look interesting.

I feel like your talking about the lenses, which I’m thinking a nice blue. I’m wondering about the actual mask portion, which I don’t think using a bright color is a good idea.

[Closet Skeleton]

So, what your saying is paint the eagles black? There’s not much I can do o. The mold lines now, I’ve already started painting them. I think I’ll go olive drab for the grenades. I have gone back and painted the iso mats on the backpacks a lighter shade.

You guys keep saying to highlight, but I already dry brushed the armor parts, I don’t know if it’s just not showing up or if there needs to be more.

I strip mold lines and flash off half painted models all the time. Its just unavoidable that some things show up after undercoat that couldn't be seen on the base material.

A few lines of thiner paint is way less jaring than mold lines.

New question, I wanna do red plasma coils. Does anyone know a recipe for that?

Last thing I tried was using contrast medium to very thin down Iyanden yellow over a white, then thinned down Blood Angels Red in the lower part of the coil and into the recesses on top, avoiding the edges.

I plan to do a white highlight but this is the fastest way I could think of.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Closet Skeleton

[KGatch113]

I second what skeleton has said...you can scrape obvious mold lines off and paint over no prob. At the least, do the helmets! 

Love the red plasma coils there! Those look great!!!!! 

Lenses would look great blue or yellow, to break up the color scheme. Masks, go with green! Ad yeah, green grenades. 

[War Angel]

So I’ve actually already painted them grey so far. I kind of like it, do you think green would still be better?

 

Still thinking I should do a hazard stripe for the right shoulder.

 

Also thinking about maybe a little white on the squad leaders mask, to look like a skull. Like in edge of tomorrow.

[Mordian Glory]

Loving the army so far!

 

Im going to stick my neck out on the mould lines topic and say don't worry about them too much. Yes it is best practice to remove them, but when you are fielding 250+ models in the army you wont notice the occasional mould lines.

 

I would recommend that you remove as many mould lines as possible before you paint the models, and then if you see some after you finish painting the squad then just leave it and don't worry about it :)

[Expendable_Aquanaut]

Looking good! I especially like the guy on the bottom right of your last post. Super cool looking.

 

I think trying out the olive green on a single mask might be a good idea. See what it looks like. I don't think the gray is bad but a little more contrast couldn't hurt. I'm also thinking the insignia on the helmets should be a different color. Not sure about black but maybe white with kind of a bluish grey shade? Or maybe the same orange-brown of the more orangey shoulderpads? Just a thought.

 

Finally, the dry brushing looks good but for flatter, emptier spaces like shoulderpads I think a little edge highlighting goes a long way. Even if you aren't super comfortable with it I think this is a good place to start.

 

Overall though great job. Love the conversions and the camo is spot on. Excited to see this progress!

[KGatch113]

The masks are from????

They look great as is.

[War Angel]

The mask are from shapeways. I’ll keep removing the mold lines I see, there’s just so many that I miss some. Update on the veteran squad.... they are done. Turns out being quarantined with little food gives me lots of time to paint, though I am about to run dry on one of my bottles of black, I do have a spare at 50%. So there’s a couple things that make the veterans stand out amongst their less experienced peers. Firstly, the hazmat helmets, followed by the hazard stripes on the right shoulder (originally I planed on this just being black, with special weapons teams being yellow and heavy weapons red, oh well, back to the drawing board). I also gave each of them grenades (except the assistant gunner has a pair of binoculars). finally, each weapon has a scope, a special one for the mortars. Here’s some picks, to include a nice little army shot.

 

 

So now I can’t decide if I should just start working on what I’ve got on my table now, or if I should just start building everything up and worry about painting things later. But damn! 38 camouflage wearing dudes looks so good! Pity I can’t get a game in with them due to this virus.

 

PS: I know I don’t have to do all this extra work to make the vets stand out, but it just felt right. I guess it’s part of playing Marines, everything is so unique, that you just can’t help continuing down that path. I know it’s going to add a lot of extra hours in the end, but it’s worth it

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job.

[WarriorFish]

Well done, good to see squads coming together :tu: Keep up the excellent progress!

[War Angel]

So it’s been a minute since I posted here. Last picture I guess I had 38 guys done. I just finished #80.

 

But I don’t have a picture of them (yet) I’ll take one tomorrow or something. I do have a picture of the sergeant though, and I feel I should share.

 

 

 

I’m going to start working on some conscripts, but I need to figure out more ways to make these snap fits unique to one another. I have 60-80 of them. Not sure if I should give the conscripts backpacks or not, any suggestions would be great.

[GreenScorpion]

Nicely painted wound :) I am not sure if the guy will last long though, they might have hit the artery :P

[War Angel]

Nicely painted wound :) I am not sure if the guy will last long though, they might have hit the artery :P

I think your right, but he’s going to die like a good guardsmen should.

[The Pounder]

 

Nicely painted wound :) I am not sure if the guy will last long though, they might have hit the artery :P

I think your right, but he’s going to die like a good guardsmen should.

Yes dying in the name of the God Emperor is the ultimate goal!!

 

Great work all round.

[Hannibal]

Nice work here. Well done! That army is amazing!