Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2008 8:13:20 GMT -5
EDIT: more (updated) pics further down the thread 
Bit of a ramble here, sorry about that...
So... starting an IG army. What to do, what to do. Initially, I just wanted a force that had been infiltrated by the Alpha Legion. No markings anywhere (imperial or otherwise), just subtle touches here and there showing their true creed. So I painted this guy up to play with colours etc:
Horrible, just horrible. The yellow breast-shield-thingy was more or less a joke, but even when you take that away, it's plain to see that it's crap. The thinking behind it was to paint the inner layers of clothing in Legion colours, and stick camouflage on the greatcoats. Fits with the background (AL being sneaky bastards and all)... but as you can plainly see, it just doesn't look good.
I realized that I needed something more solid to base the force on. They might have been compromised by the Legion - but who exactly are they? Where are they from, what do they do, and so forth? Being foremost a painter, I started by working out a few key points concerning their looks:
1) They must be converted or modified in some way. I don't want vanilla flavor.
2) I'd like them to be dirty and look like they've seen their share of fights and hard times. Battle damage and weathering, yes please.
3) I want them to look realistic and not too flashy. Going to battle clad in purple? I don't think so.
What then? Took a break, cooked up some food and watched a few episodes of OZ... and that's when the idea of a riot control theme hit me. A prison colony. Riot shields, grenade launchers, shock teams in APCs - this might just work! I decided to put the Legion idea aside for a moment, and just concentrate on getting a hard-as-nails, seen-it-all, veteran groundpounder look out of my next miniature. With that in mind, I slapped together another soldier, and got to work.
Clearly much more a labor of love than the other guy... anyway, this is where I'm at now. I really like that little guy! I had planned to go with Pig Iron heads (gas masks and nazi helmets rock), but that cadian bubblehead actually doesn't look half bad to me, and visible faces add a lot of character to minis in my experience. I'll have to think about that.
However, I am wondering if perhaps I've gone overboard with the dullness. He is VERY drab looking, perhaps even a bit too much. I tried a few things with the shield, but almost all of my ideas (mostly different sorts of checkered patterns) ended up drawing too much attention from the face and disrupting the colour scheme completely. I'll probably just use it on vehicles, but it would be cool to have on the infantry as it just looks very, very eyecatching. I don't want to loose the shields because that would mean greenstuffing the arms of every single soldier in the force to get them to fit with the bodies. No thanks. I might add shoulder straps to the guns though. I shortened the above lasgun as much as possible, but it still looks a tad too big to be used with one hand.
Ah, and finally a word on bases - yes, I know how to do them, I just didn't want to spend too much time on a colour test. But I'm thinking pretty generic urban bases.
Thoughts, advice, comments, critique... fire at will, gentlemen.
Bit of a ramble here, sorry about that...
So... starting an IG army. What to do, what to do. Initially, I just wanted a force that had been infiltrated by the Alpha Legion. No markings anywhere (imperial or otherwise), just subtle touches here and there showing their true creed. So I painted this guy up to play with colours etc:
Horrible, just horrible. The yellow breast-shield-thingy was more or less a joke, but even when you take that away, it's plain to see that it's crap. The thinking behind it was to paint the inner layers of clothing in Legion colours, and stick camouflage on the greatcoats. Fits with the background (AL being sneaky bastards and all)... but as you can plainly see, it just doesn't look good.
I realized that I needed something more solid to base the force on. They might have been compromised by the Legion - but who exactly are they? Where are they from, what do they do, and so forth? Being foremost a painter, I started by working out a few key points concerning their looks:
1) They must be converted or modified in some way. I don't want vanilla flavor.
2) I'd like them to be dirty and look like they've seen their share of fights and hard times. Battle damage and weathering, yes please.
3) I want them to look realistic and not too flashy. Going to battle clad in purple? I don't think so.
What then? Took a break, cooked up some food and watched a few episodes of OZ... and that's when the idea of a riot control theme hit me. A prison colony. Riot shields, grenade launchers, shock teams in APCs - this might just work! I decided to put the Legion idea aside for a moment, and just concentrate on getting a hard-as-nails, seen-it-all, veteran groundpounder look out of my next miniature. With that in mind, I slapped together another soldier, and got to work.
Clearly much more a labor of love than the other guy... anyway, this is where I'm at now. I really like that little guy! I had planned to go with Pig Iron heads (gas masks and nazi helmets rock), but that cadian bubblehead actually doesn't look half bad to me, and visible faces add a lot of character to minis in my experience. I'll have to think about that.
However, I am wondering if perhaps I've gone overboard with the dullness. He is VERY drab looking, perhaps even a bit too much. I tried a few things with the shield, but almost all of my ideas (mostly different sorts of checkered patterns) ended up drawing too much attention from the face and disrupting the colour scheme completely. I'll probably just use it on vehicles, but it would be cool to have on the infantry as it just looks very, very eyecatching. I don't want to loose the shields because that would mean greenstuffing the arms of every single soldier in the force to get them to fit with the bodies. No thanks. I might add shoulder straps to the guns though. I shortened the above lasgun as much as possible, but it still looks a tad too big to be used with one hand.
Ah, and finally a word on bases - yes, I know how to do them, I just didn't want to spend too much time on a colour test. But I'm thinking pretty generic urban bases.
Thoughts, advice, comments, critique... fire at will, gentlemen.
However, they now seem to have an air of general inquisitorial weirdness, which is dead cool in my book. Witch Hunters are so in (haven't figured out which army will be the mother faction, though).