Lock's Christmas Challenge

[lockinvar]

Alright, so my last exam is only an hour and 45 min away then I'm free for christmas break. So I've decided to paint as much as I can over christmas and post pictures of my progress here to show the lovely members of IGMB. My current guard army only has 10 half painted models out of about 2000pts of models so I really need to paint more. So I will start painting tomorrow, and I may post pictures of what I have currently later today if I have time (my mom is hosting a party today so I may be busy).

So I hereby challenge my self to paint ALL MY GUARD over christmas break(or a rather large portion) so I can actually go to my local GW and play there.

Thanks for the read

Lock

[Gerner]

Good luck!

[3ff3ct]

That, sir, is a mighty fine challenge!

My advice would be to invest in a big brush for undercoating/washing, and to paint the basic colours production line style. It'll save you a lot of time over doing base colours individually, and it is easy to touch up areas when adding details later

As above, I wish you luck

[lockinvar]

Alright, sorry for the wait. So here are the pictures of my army thus far. It consists of 5 infantry squads, 3 company/platoon command squads, an autocannon heavy weapons squad, and a single lascannon weapon team. As for as vehicles go I have a chimera, one hellhound, one valkyrie and 1 leman russ battle tank. I have a demolisher in the box waiting to be built as well as another battle tank in a box waiting to be built. I'm more waiting on buying magnets in which to magnetize the barrel's and sponsons. Also there are 3 psychers off on the right. They seem out of place but I got them for 5 dollars so they might get some loving in the coming weeks.

The fluff of my army goes like this, after a terrible and cataclysmic battle many regiments/battalions are wiped out or left with very few men. As a result these leftover men are folded into a new regiment/battalion. But in the heat of war on a planet there may not be time to make a new regiment with new uniforms and colours and such. My regiment is one of these regiments.

I call them “The Leftovers” and I am going to give each squad a different camo scheme but I need to think of some way in which to unify them but still retain the individual paintjobs in the squads. I was thinking of maybe a red armband or something of that nature. I also planned on having an “LO” or “TL” on everyone’s shoulder pads for Leftovers or The leftovers.

Anyways I think it is a cool idea, I would like ideas on a way to unify the army and on whether it should be LO or TL. I’m thinking more LO. Also suggestions for camo schemes are welcome. Pictures of what I have now are to follow.

Army shot:


closer shots of the 3 sections I had them in. no real importance to these sections just how they happend to be placed when I took the picture:






Alright, thus far I have one squad semi-painted as of like 1 year ago. I think I was going for a city type camo, I am not quite sure but looking a them now I prefer the grey to the blue... Also because I only have like 12 guardsmen painted the pictures may have the same guardsmen in them twice.












Alright(I use this word alot...) so there you have it, my army in all its unpainted grey glory. but not for long for I will paint it this comming 2 weeks and I will keep you guys posted.

[3ff3ct]

I quite like the grey, although I think the fatigues say 'ice camo' rather than 'urban'. Cosmic has some nice grey flaked guardsmen in his 'imperial slope' thread that might be of interest to you.

I had a good chuckle at the nu-rave vox caster guardsman Did you use EVERY colour on him?

[lockinvar]

Dec 19, 2011 2:27:26 GMT -5 3ff3ct said:

I had a good chuckle at the nu-rave vox caster guardsman Did you use EVERY colour on him?

I actually did not paint that guardsmen. He was my girlfriends first model that she built and painted by herself. I actually call him my gay pride guardsmen (I mean no offence, he just matches the flags colours so nicely). She jsut had fun with him, she has a nice looking eldar army that she is working on at the moment that you can see in the background of the army shot.

[lockinvar]

Alright so for the first time in about a year I PAINTED SOMETHING!!!!!

Now lets not get too excited about this, I am not the best painter in the world but I enjoy painting and much better than when I started. Anyways I was trying for an urban camo scheme with these guys. They used to be the guys with the blue armor above, I really didn’t like the blue armor so I changed it. So the pictures are to follow, I hope you enjoy.

So here is a couple pictures of the first group:






Here is the rest of the group:


Now I thought these 2 guys best represented what I was going for with the camo scheme:


And here is a close up of one of the guys:




Okay so remember I am not the best painter in the world. Also I used some black ink on the faces of some of the guys, I don’t know why I thought it would look good. In the pictures it doesn’t look too bad, it looks like camo paint. But when you look at it in real life it’s pretty bad.

Any advice on the use of ink’s or washes? Any ideas on the next camo scheme? I’m thinking something green. Also I still need an idea on how to unify everyone I am still thinking an armband is my best bet and I am going to do a red LO for leftovers.

Alright thank you guys for looking,

Lock

[KRIEGEIRK]

Washes tend to be cleaner and easier to use. a few light coats and you'll be set. I highly recommend washes over inks as inks can tend to ruin a figure if you don't apply it just right.

[3ff3ct]

Seconded. I water mine down a bit too, its easier to put another layer on than paint over it and do it again

If you base your models all the same when they're done they should look good together, other than that use a spot colour like you said. It needn't be armbands on everyone, maybe helmet stripes or guns or something

Any chance of a peek at your lady's Eldar? We don't see many of them around here!

[emptyhat]

Dec 20, 2011 4:04:29 GMT -5 3ff3ct said:

Any chance of a peek at your lady's Eldar? We don't see many of them around here!

I need to quote this out of context sometime to get you in trouble 3ff3ct

Lock, thumbs up for your challenge, I admire your sense of quest. Also it seems like you have the best thing that someone who wants to get better at painting needs, you enjoy it!

I think if you enjoy painting and listen to hints and tips then it is only a matter of practice before you start getting better. That's how it's going for me anyway. Good luck guy!

[egon]

Washes is the way to go. Check out yeti's Valhallans for some tips&trix on how to use washes.
Overall they look okay (I feel sorry for the poor guy whose arm is coming off; ). Personally I prefer to keep the main "body" of the lasgun in one colour and then just do the details (barrel, skull and wings) in boltgun. Looks a bit cleaner that way, IMHO.

As for tying them together I suggest giving them all the same shoulder pad (black works with most other colours) with a white "L" on. The L could stand for the 50th Remnant Regiment (L is the Roman numeral for 50) which the joking guardsmen then decided stood for "Leftovers".
Since you only have Cadians all of your models will have shoulder pads. If you want to include other models (Catachans, Mordians etc) you can just give them something similar or make up something new. Like "The red belt of courage" which all other, non-cadian guardsmen wear to show that they are members of the Leftovers.

[DadCRO]

Did you use fenris grey for the blue-armoured guardsmen?

[lockinvar]

@ DadCRO - Yes i did.

@ egon - I built them over a year ago and painted them, I do believe that these fine gentlemen were the first guardsmen I ever built. As a result I did not notice that certain arms went with certain lasguns and bodies until it was too late. The rest of the guardsmen are much better I assure you.

Also egon my issue with the shoulder pads is that the fluff is that the regiment was more thrown together and they wouldn't have had time to change their armor, thats why I was thinking the armband, but it is easy to paint a shoulderpad If your a soldier on the battlefield... I also plan on getting some mordians, vostryans, catachans and such so I need something that will unify them all.

Thank you very much for the input guys. I hope to get some painting done tonight after work... but I dont htink it will happen. Maybe I will just take pictures of "my ladies eldar" for 3ff3ct

Lock

[egon]

I think it would probably be harder to find matching armbands for everyone than (for them) to paint one of their shoulder pads. Also you would need to greenstuff the armband on all of them. Just painting it on wouldn't look right.
If you want something that works on every guardsman I'd say belts. All models have them, no need for scuplting and it's dead simple. Just pick a colour that works with the colour scheme of the non-cadians and there you go.
Fluffwise it could be because of some typical buereocratic screw-up. Instead of ammunition the quartermaster general sent three million Sentraxi pattern parade belts or something.

[lockinvar]

I finished the next squad. They have a forest camo scheme to them. It did not turn out as well as I wanted but its still okay. I will post pictures tomorrow, my camera is currently out of commission so I need to use my girlfriends camera. I hope these guys are better than the last, they are certainly built better!

lock