Teku's 18th Battalion. New works in progress.

[teku18]

Hey everyone after a lot of meandering around on the forums I figured I would be time to post up the build progress of my army. I would like to thank the United States IRS and my Tau army for giving me the ability to bulk buy almost my entire army. Most of it is still in the mail and I still have a few items to get after all this stuff comes in, but it should be a fun build with a few interesting ideas I have for custom ideas.

As for right now I will leave you with pictures of what I already have built. And yes I know I need to get a wash on these guys, but until I an get to my local GW (45min drive one way) they will stay the way they are lol.



As of right now I have 40 troops and 2 CCS to build. I also have 5 chimeras, 9 heavy weapon squads and 4 tanks coming. So my weekend should be fun filled haha. I will update this tomorrow with my full army layout.

[badgersplatter]

I thought *my* to-do list was bulky. Blimey! Keep it up :-)

[egon]

Yes, it does need some washe and some more attention to the details (everything is so... beige!).
It also wouldn't hurt priming them before painting. Right now there is lots of plastic showing through.

[Cosmic]

Looking good so far

I'll save full comments for when you've got the washes so hurry up!

[teku18]

.@ badgersplatter: yeah I do have a ton to do lol, but at least it will keep me occupied.

@ Egon: yes they are very beige haha sorry about that. As for priming before painting I prime everything. I'm sure your talking about the tauros venator with the gray showing. They were old pictures I used from my intro thread a week ago. I have since gone back and tried to cover most of that up.

@ Cosmic: Oh boy lol hope I can even make these guys look a percentage as good as some of the other painters on here.

[badgersplatter]

Don't be afraid of the beige! You can weather and shade creatively to break it up a bit.

[Rolling Thunder]

Not bad, but it could do with some shading or washing, I feel.

[teku18]

Picked up some paints on friday after work and have been working on some guys this weekend. I'll have a picture update sometime today. I have to say if it wouldn't have been for this board I wouldn't have tried washes or highlights, but I am so glad I did.

[teku18]

Okay here is my first group of guys with a wash and highlights. C&C welcome as always.

[zeke]

Looks great! Very smooth and clean. My only advise would be to put some washes on the skin. It would make it out more.

[teku18]

Yeah my GW didn't have any skin washes I could see. They were waiting on a restocking order to come in. And now that I look at the pictures I need to work on getting rid of the Derp eyes some of them have lol.

[BG. Foster]

If I'm honest I'd have to say they are too clean looking. Don't get me wrong they look to be painted well but when I think of guardsmen I see mud covered battle worn soldiers. These guys look like they are heading to the parade ground

[egon]

Give them all a wash of Devlan Mud from head to toe. That will sort out the faces, armour and weapons and give them a slightly less clean look. I'd also drop the black lines on the bayonets. They're too thick for such a tiny blade.

[emptyhat]

The eyes are very googogly but that is something that will come with practice or using more subtle strokes.

I love how bright the blue looks and how it contrasts with the khaki. Don't let everyone push you into grim-darking it too much with the washes. Not everything has to follow the same style.

[badgersplatter]

Tip for eyes - try painting a black horizontal line, then covering each end in a dot of white. No more googlies.

[teku18]

I'll try that with the next batch of 5 guys I do. However I like how my friend put it, they have a WHAT IS THAT?!? look to them.

[teku18]

Okay not much of an update as I am still finishing up the rest of my 50 troops. However I am going to be going to my local GW sometime this weekend and I have a question.

Concerning my tanks while my troops have that clean look to then I want my tanks to have a little bit of battle damage what would be a good wash and highlight to use on the vehicles? I am going to be using the same base tan that my troop pants are i just don't know if the wash I have would work well on the vehicles or if there was a better wash to use. Thanks for all you help guys hope to have some nice squad shots soon.

[egon]

Devlan mud to get the details out and to make the models actually look finished. Badab black is good for for making most things look a bit worn and dirty.
IMO Devlan can be (and should) be used for most organic things (like the skin of your troops *hint, hint*) and Badab Black is more of a metallic "artificial materials" wash.

[teku18]

Hey everyone not much new stuff going on I have been real busy trying to get a second job for some extra "fun" money. However I came up with a conversion idea I would like everyone's opinion on. I have seen a thread on here, can't remember which one, that talked about using Tau legs for conversions. I liked that idea due to the fact it looks like the trooper has extra armor on. I wanted to do something different for my Veteran unit that separated them from the rest of the army.

So here is what I came up with.


Now it is not perfect by any means and is, as of right now, just a rough prototype of what I want to do. I used the legs off of a Tau trooper to give the extra armor feel of the unit. I also wanted to give them something that would instill fear into an opposing army. Now my friend who also has a small guard army also plays Necrons. When I saw he had an extra head or two I decided to see what it would look like on the face of a guardsman like he was wearing a mask. I liked how it looked and here it is. Now my plan is to have a field of 20 veterans total two squads. They will be painted up in a night fighting scheme to play into the mask feel. Now as it is a prototype I have made some rough edges and all that. They will be cleaned up with the other guys. I just want to know other peoples opinions on what I should add or what I should try different in the trimming and fitting of the separate pieces.

[Cosmic]

It's a very interesting concept Teku.

If this was to go ahead then some GS work would really be necessary to blend everything in together of course. The face is an intriguing mash-up. I really like the idea behind it, it's just the execution of it. The lower jaw is a bit prominent I feel, maybe remove that and then just have the head as a sort of skull, that would look menacing

[teku18]

Thanks Cosmic. I have never worked with GS before but I was thinking about trying it out for this due to the legs not really matching up to the torso that well. The necron head is a bit long that's why I tried to cut as much off the top as I could. However I might try sanding down the lower jaw a bit to see if that will make a difference.

[commissarbob]

My thought would be to remove the lower jaw and place a hose there for an armored gas mask effect.

[Empirespy]

I would sand down the jaw and leave it at that for the mask, adding a pipe would make it look like a gas mask, and not the fear inspiring unnatural feel you are trying to create.

[teku18]

So after a long time I finally got done (for the most part) my 2 platoon squads of troops. I still need to get skin washes for them which at this point I might just order on line since I haven't had any extra time to get to my GW. Most of them still need eyes as well but for a table top ready squad I am happy.








I still have the 2 PCS's to finish, but for right now I think I am going to just play the troops as veteran's simply ecause I am tired of painting troops and I have 9 tanks to build lol.

Speaking of Tanks I started working on a chimera, and I am having trouble with it. I started with the base color and all that however I am not liking how the wash came out. I don't want an incredibly beat up vehicle, but I would like to have some nice detail like a lot of the other vehicles I have seen done on here. Could be because I haven't started highlighting the tank yet idk. If anyone could give me some pointers to try I am all ears.

[KRIEGEIRK]

I really dig the necron faced vets, teku. I would agree with the above statements, remove the lower jaw, add a hose and a filtration system for a skull gasmask. Kind of like my Death Korps Grenadiers (if you want to get an idea of what we're talking about). Im a big fan of it, and with some minor tweaking it will look great!