Antarius' fall project(s) 2024 (presently loyalist Emperor's Children)

[Antarius]

32 minutes ago, StratoKhan said:

Still haven’t quite worked out what this is! There’s not loads of purple space marines but I’m not sure it’s EC?

Yup! Loyalist Emperor's Children to fight my mate's Death Guard in the new year 

[Elazar The Glorified]

That EC Rhino looks a lush colour!

[Antarius]

18 hours ago, Elazar The Glorified said:

That EC Rhino looks a lush colour!

Thanks! I am trying for something along the lines of “Tyrian purple”, the colour of the roman emperors  and, according to the black books, the colour of the EC. I have mixed up a purple primer and then sprayed Vallejo’s “Warlord Purple” over the top. I am a bit afraid that I’ll run into trouble once my purple runs out, though, as it seems that the currently sold Warlord Purple is much darker than my pot (which is quite pinkish and transparent, but perfect over my purple primer…).

Edited November 22, 2024 by Antarius

[Antarius]

Managed to test a bit of weathering (scratches) on the Rhino and get a few test marines painted up. I read that white armour inlays where popular among terran and (later) loyalist EC, so I figured it might be worthwhile to see if that’d look good on the shoulderpads. It’s quite striking and provides some contrast, but I am not sure about it…

[Tallarn Commander]

The weathering is looking great!

[Antarius]

12 hours ago, Tallarn Commander said:

The weathering is looking great!

Thanks! It's extremely easy to do (a bit of sponge and some metallic paint and the you just make "scratches" where you think it'd be realistic/look good).

[Firedrake Cordova]

15 hours ago, Antarius said:

I am a bit afraid that I’ll run into trouble once my purple runs out, though, as it seems that the currently sold Warlord Purple is much darker than my pot

That would be unfortunate.  Looking at the images on Vallejo's site, my pot appears brighter than the swatch - about the same as this photo from a retailer. I'd hope that Vallejo would introduce a new colour, rather than changing an existing one, although I'd also hope that the swatches on their site were accurate (my monitor is colour-calibrated). :/

 

Have you tried looking at Coat D'Arm's Warlock Purple? It should be the same colour as the colour Warlord Purple was meant to match. Alternatively, do you think you could lighten any new pots to match (possibly ivory might be good for this)?

[Antarius]

On 11/22/2024 at 10:17 AM, Firedrake Cordova said:

That would be unfortunate.  Looking at the images on Vallejo's site, my pot appears brighter than the swatch - about the same as this photo from a retailer. I'd hope that Vallejo would introduce a new colour, rather than changing an existing one, although I'd also hope that the swatches on their site were accurate (my monitor is colour-calibrated). :/

 

Have you tried looking at Coat D'Arm's Warlock Purple? It should be the same colour as the colour Warlord Purple was meant to match. Alternatively, do you think you could lighten any new pots to match (possibly ivory might be good for this)?

Yeah, I think I might try to go down the path of lightening the new colour. I ordered two pots and they should arrive any day now, so I can get started on experimenting.

[Antarius]

Well, the paints I received were actually rather weird - the Warlord Purple was much darker than the one I have half a pot or so of left, but it was actually quite a nice shade, so I figured it would do either as a "midtone" that I could shade and/or highlight although it might be a tad too close to my primer.

However, I had also ordered some "Squid Pink" because I figured I could use it either as a mixing colour or as a partial highlight colour/zenithal highlight if I wanted to do oil washes on top. The only problem was, the two bottles of Squid Pink didn't match each other at all! After a polite email to the webshop, who were extremely good about the whole thing, I quickly got another pot in the mail which didn't match either.
So, I am now stuck with three different shades of Squid Pink and on top of that, I've just learned that Vallejo is probably just going downhill, quality-wise, as well as not treating their workers very well so I won't be buying their brand of paint again (which is a real shame, as they used to be top of the line, at least in my experience).

So, what to do? Well, it seems like I might be able to do something reasonably cool with my purple primer, then zenithal with a purplish-pink mix and then a magenta oil wash. I just hope I have enough paint for an entire army, but if I mix it myself it should be doable, I guess.

Here's a teaser of some new primed guys and two of my test minis. The one to the left has gotten some magenta oil paints, whereas the one on the right hasn't. I'm not sure the picture really does them justice, but "live" the left one is much more vivid, so despite all the annoyance with the paints, I'm cautiously optimistic about the whole thing 

 

Also, my good friend (who's playing filthy Death Guard traitors) has kindly printed a lot of shoulder pads for me and I'm going to do something I generally don't do and paint them separately. Why? Because as mentioned above, white armour pieces was apparently a thing for terrans and loyalists, so I figured I might as well do white shoulderpads on a bunch of the marines and it'd just be silly to try and get a good white over purple...

I also like how they generally emphasise the legion number, laurels and eagles over the legion symbol. I think my guys will probably identify more with things that hearken back to Terra and the founding of the legion, rather than anything associated with Fulgrim, at this point.

I've also started writing some ridiculously geeky fluff for my army and their allies (a small contingent of loyalist Iron Warriors). I'm unsure whether to post it or not, though, as I am, quite frankly, not doing to good at present and so, I am rather more self-conscious than I might otherwise be.

In any case though, I've settled on the nickname "The Hounds of the Imperium" for my EC guys. The idea is that they were never very good at the whole court intrigue thing and were always rather more "down and dirty" in their prosecution of warfare. So at one point, some high and mighty EC guy (probably Eidolon or some other hoity-toity chapter master guy in Fulgrim's good graces) likened them to hunting dogs and/or the war hounds, which was meant as a grievous insult of course, but rather than let him get one over on them, they claimed the name as a nickname because they valued the traits associated with hounds; loyalty, tenacity, bravery etc.
It's hardly Shakespeare, of course, but I think it works nicely for an army name and sets them apart from "regular" EC and their obsession with finery and duellist's stuff. These guys are much more brutal and beat up, as I envision them. Partly because of the way they wage war, partly because they've been sent on all the crap missions and partly because they've had to scavenge for replacement gear, once the heresy broke out.

Edited December 2, 2024 by Antarius

[Tallarn Commander]

I like the fluff. Appropriating a derogatory slur is classic! Too bad about the pink paint pots.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Urgh, that's frustrating with the lack of consistency of the paint - I had a 3 dud Vallejo paints about 10-15 years ago, but they've been super-consistent since.  Apparently, back in the white flip-top days GW paint used to be quite variable because HMG "mixed by eye".

 

The WIP minis look like a good start, though  

[Antarius]

Ok, so I lightened the new Warlord Purple slightly (10 drops of Squid Pink, for future reference...) and that seems to have gotten it almost to where my old pot was, judging from the way it looks painted onto white paper. So I reckon that's close enough for government work 

When I airbrushed the next batch I felt that they looked very pink, but now that the paint has dried I think they're pretty much at the same level as my test batch - maybe even slightly darker. So I think we're good to go now! Don't mind the big guys in the back, they're just a couple of perfectly normal bystanders...

I also went ahead and sprayed another batch of shoulder pads white. Going forward, I'll have some guys with white shoulder pads and leave some shoulder pads purple, just to have a bit of variety. But most will definitely have white elements, as the contrast is quite striking.

[Antarius]

And a little preview of the contrast between the white and the purple. The golden trim will make it look slightly less stark, but I actually like the boldness of the white.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Good to see you got old and new paints matching nicely

Edited December 3, 2024 by Firedrake Cordova

[W.A.Rorie]

Very nice love that shade. glad you got it to match

 

[Antarius]

Thanks guys 
I really am quite pleased with how this is working out so far, so now it's "just" a question of actually painting the marines up...

[Pearson73]

Looking solid so far!

[Antarius]

Thanks everybody - progress has been (predictably) slowed down by December stuff (birthdays, xmas, assembling minis, other creative projects as well as some work on the house/garden) but I haven't lost hope yet, so that's good 
One of my big challenges, which I'm sure a lot of people in the hobby can relate to is what I term the "hobby ADHD cycle" of excitedly starting a new project, biting off more than I can chew and abandoning the project in favour of a new project ("I'll surely finish this one!"). This is something that's always been a bit of a problem for me, but much more so in the winter months, which is sort of silly, as this is where I really ought to have a lot of time and energy for doing hobby work. My best attempt at a "fix" so far has been to allow myself to drift slightly, but retain my main project; so, whenever I feel the need to paint another model or batch of models, I just go ahead and do that but I don't abandon my main project or start another big project alongside it. So, I've been doing some work on other game systems, but my EC are still next to my paint station (and my heart!).

A stroke of luck, is that my slow progress has given me the time to get "The Battle for Beta-Garmon" as an xmas present and notice that the Shattered Legions should be perfect for accommodating the ideas I've got floating around my skull, as well as my somewhat flighty hobby nature. So my EC will pair up with some Iron Warriors and Warhounds that I've been writing up a bit of fluff for and that I originally envisioned as just background story/allied detachments down the road.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Ah yes, the "hobby butterfly" can be a right pain productivity-wise...