Quickshade Part 3 - Objectives & Imperial Officer

Here's one more post regarding my experiments with this stuff, which I love. It's been a great help for me, allowing me to finish units and models that have been sat in my bits box for years in minutes. It's not something that gives amazing results, but it gives very respectable results, which will do just as well half the time. I'm never going to use nothing but quickshade on my models, but I can see myself painting up second and third armies using this. You can see my previous dippings in these posts:

Eldar Guardians

Empire Handgunner

Kroot Squad

Recently I've spotted a shedload of well modeled objective markers around the 40k blogscene. A crashed Falcon, a Wraithgate, wounded Battle Brothers and Guardsmen, Nurgle Trees and Eldar Escape Pods. 

Naturaly this would inspire me to model my own, perhaps cutting up a spare Rhino and filling it with wounded Blood Angels for my Sanguinary Priests to tend to. Well, that's far too much work for me, so I did the next best thing.

I grabbed some vaugely important looking Imperial Machinery from my bits box, and stuck it on round bases. Most of these pieces came from the Battle for Macragge box set, which is suprising since I never owned that set. A quick Chainmail drybrush, pick out some details with brass, gold and black, and a dip in the army painter.

Nothing awe-inspiring, but they make passable markers for the moment. I added some subtle colour coding to each of the markers, to make it easier to take about them - I could just say "the red marker", and you'd know which one I meant.

One other thing I dipped at the same time was an Imperial Guard Officer, who was featured undipped in an older post. I may end up using this model as a mobile objective, perhaps he's carrying important information which both players need, so he must be taken alive. The paintjob on this model is passable at most, I intended it to be a test model for a possible Imperial Guard army in the future, but I think the scheme pretty much failed.

One interesting thing about this model is the base - I painted it originaly 3 years ago, and at the time I used a much finer material for bases. If you compare it to the bases on the objectives, it shows a marked difference.

This will probably be the last quickshaded models I post for a while now, I really need to concentrate on my Blood Angels. I've got a post about my finished Chaplain and part 2 of my Blood Angels Painting Guide coming up.

- Gavin

Kroot Part 2

The Kroot are dry and varnished, with the bases yet to paint. I painted them Knarloc Green, with a Gretchin Green chest, Desert Yellow spines and a Chainmail / Snakebite Leather gun. This is how they turned out.

I think they turned out quite good, Quickshade seems to works better on fleshy models than armoured models, so things like Kroot, Orks and Nids would be perfect for dipping.

- Gavin

Armylist of the Empire

I've not posted an armylist for a long time, so I'm going to share with you my planned list for my Talabecland army, the first model of which you can see below. I intend to paint the army as simply and quickly as possible, using the quickshade to get half decent results with minimal effort (my Blood Angels take enough effort on their own!)

The army is based around a few large blocks of infantry, with cannons and hellblasters to pound the enemy as they advance towards the glorious ranks of Karl Franz's infantry, yada yada ya. If the name of the unit is a link, it'll take you to the GW site to show the model I intend to use.

General of the Empire on Foot

Sword of Sigismund (+1S, Always Strike First)

Dawn Armour & Shield (3+ Save, Re-rolled)

Talisman of Protection (6+ Ward Save)

Captain of the Empire on Foot

Griffon Standard (Doubles Rank Bonus)

with

23 Greatswords

Full HQ

Warrior Priest on Foot

Heavy Armour

Second Warhammer

with

24 Flagellants (Counts as Core Unit due to Priest)

Prophet of Doom

Level 2 Wizard on Foot (Probably Celestial)

2 Dispel Scrolls

25 Swordsmen

Full HQ

10 Hangunners as Detachment

25 Spearmen

Full HQ

10 Handgunners as Detachment

3 Great Cannons

Hellblaster Volley Gun

So, any Empire generals out there who can give me an opinion or any advice? 

EDIT (29th April) - From feedback on forums, it seems that:

A - The Warrior Priest may not join the Flaggelants

B - Pistoliers Rock

and 

C - Pistoliers Rock

I'll be updating my list to reflect this.

- Gavin

Return of the Tau.... er, Kroot! - Part 1

I don't think I've posted them on here before, but my previous army was the Tau. I managed to collect nearly 3000pts of Tau through buying plenty of battleforces, and I probably got them 60% completed, which is insanely complete for me. Here's a few of the finished models, all painted around 2 years ago:

Here are 2 of my Basic Fire Warriors. I had 36 of these, 24 of which were finished. The blue was achieved using Basecoat/Wash/Highlight, a similar technique to my current Blood Angels armour, although it was a little more basic. The red barrels were deliberately bright, I wanted them to look almost like toy guns.
This is my main commander, whose name I have forgotten. This guy was a Guard/Eldar killing machine, but could hardly scratch an MEQ list. For when I was playing against MEQ, I had a Forgeworld battlesuit with twin-linked plasma guns and a hefty shield.

This is my 1000pt army taking to the field at the Golden Throne Tournament 2007, where I came exactly middle of the results. I took an army designed for killing Guard and Eldar, since they were the most prevalent. I came up against 2 Guard armies (which I dismantled with incredible anti-infantry firepower), a Mechanised Squat army (which took me by suprise, and thrashed me - they used the Guard rules by the way) and a Necron army (where he made all his We'll Be Back rolls, so I couldn't dent him!)

I've been sorely tempted to dig this army out and complete all the models I own (without buying any more). Rather than do that right now, I've decided to quickshade my squad of 15 Kroot. I'm not a Kroot fan, and I never inteded to put them together and use them, but Quickshade will allow me to finish them incredibly quickly, and will give me another completed unit to field when I do dig out the Tau.

Here's one of my Kroot pre-shade. I used foundation paints, and did one of the sloppiest paint jobs of my life. Thats the beauty of quickshade, it's letting me finish all the odd jobs I've been meaning to do, but could never be bothered to finish. It's also been very distracting for my Blood Angels, I keep putting them off to finish Kroot, Empire and other such rubbish.

I've dipped the first 5, and it'll take 12 hours to dry. After that they'll need a coat of Matt Varnish and then bases painting. I'll post the results when I've finished.

- Gavin 

Experiment with Quickshade - Part 2

I was mightily impressed by my first use of the Army Painter Quickshade, which made a simple box of 4 snap together Guardians look like this:

I thought they looked great, especialy since I put pretty much no time or effort into them. Unfortunately, I don't collect Eldar, so they were pretty useless to me. I've decided to put some Quickshade to use on an army I actualy collect, Empire. Here is a handgunner painted in a very basic scheme of Iyanden Darksun / Blood Red.

Pretty rubbish looking, and the photgraphs don't help at all. I then dipped the model, left it to dry and applied Matt Varnish. Unlike my Guardians this didn't work perfectly first time, the yellow had turned into a Vomit Brown, although I was pleased with the Red, the face and the gun. I think the solution for this would be to use a cheap molehair paintbrush to liberaly splash the shader on the model, leaving less splotches. 

I decided to try and salvage this model by going over the yellow with a new coat of Iyanden, which is something I've not tried yet. I think this saved the model, and I can now proudly use this, as long as I keep him in the rear ranks.

I pulled an old Imperial Officer out of my bits box, and applied a fresh coat of paint to his armour and cloth. I'm going to test the brush on method with this model next.

More Blood Angels coming soon, painted with real  painting...

-Gavin

Blood Angel Painting Guide - Part 1

This is a step by step guide for painting Blood Angels using my method. It's almost certainly not the best looking way to paint Red, nor is it the easiest, but I think it's a nice medium between a quick basic paintjob and a hyper-detailed aproach. I'm mainly writing this down as a record, just in case I ever forget the exact details.

For a quick and easy way to get a decent Blood Angels army on the tabletop, check out http://the25mmwarrior.blogspot.com/ , this fellow uses Army Painter quickshade and get's great results. I've experimented with this stuff on Eldar Guardians, and I think it's wonderful stuff.

Here's part one of my guide :

Paint Needed: Mecherite Red, Blood Red, Red Ink, Magneta Ink, Chaos Black

Step One

Undercoat the sprues with Black Spray, followed by painting on watered down Chaos Black with a tank brush, careful not to splash paint all over the furniture! After the black paint is dry, get the same tank brush, and brush a couple of thin coats of Mecherite Red over any area of the model which will be red. You don't have to be too careful here, you can paint it over with Chaos Black later.

You can cut the models off the sprue, trim any mold lines with a knife and stick the models on the bases now. I tend to paint models in several smaller parts, with the Black Reach marines I'm currently painting I'm leaving the Boltguns and Backpacks seperate till later.

The models should look like this:

Step Two

Paint over the bare plastic left from the sprue with a new coat of Chaos Black, followed by a thin coat of Mecherite Red over any part of the armour that should be red, but has been missed. When this is dry paint the entire model with a watered down coat of Blood Red using a smaller brush, taking care to be neater. Mix up a wash made up of 20% Red Ink, 20% Magneta Ink and 60% Water, and liberaly coat the entire model wherever it should be red. Leave to dry.

Unfortunately Red Ink and Magneta Ink are both no longer sold by GW, and the new inks are too dark to use as an alternative. When I run low on my inks I will almost certainly turn to Valejo's Game Ink range, as they seem to be similar.

Step Three

This is the insanely annoying step, and the one that takes the longest. The idea is to simply paint any part of the model which will not be red with Chaos Black, using your finest brush. Sounds simple, but takes several years. At this point I like to get the base for the Squad Badge on the kneepad done, just for a little variation. As this is the 3rd Squad, I use a basecoat of Iyanden Darksun. 

Here are the results below, along with an example of a finished battle brother. There's plenty left to go, but I find that I can finish a 5 man squad in around 6 hours, when listening to an interesting podcast (Skeptics Guide to the Universe is highly recomended, google it!).

I'll post part 2 of this guide some time in the next few days, I really need to get steaming ahead with my Blood Angels and this will be the perfect excuse to get a squad painted. I think it's a nice example of the effect Inks can have on Space Marine armour, and how a little inking can give it that vibrancy it can sorely need.

-Gavin

Fire Prism > Everything Else

This picture pretty much speaks for itself.

- Gavin

Experiment with Quickshade (Updated 20th April)

I recently picked up a tin of this stuff. If it did what it said on the tin, I could finally finish some of the armies that I just can't bring myself round to paint, like the Empire I have sat in a box in the loft.
I decided to test it on an Eldar Guardian, because I had a strange urge to paint some Eldar. The colour scheme is base on Adam FitzGerald's Eldar army, because they rock.

I first slapped on a quick layer of Hormagaunt Purple, with Skull White and Iyanden Darksun in places, with Blood Red Eyes. Took me about 5 seconds, and that's it. I added some sand to the base and simply painted that Khemro Brown, although that was after the picture was taken.


Apologies for the poor quality of the picture.

I then dipped it into the quickshade, shook it off and left it to dry for 12 hours. I then painted the bases rim black, and sprayed with Matt varnish.

I'm actually quite impressed with this stuff. I once tried the same with Wood Stain (inspired by a thread on WarSeer), but it failed. I'm definitely gonna use this stuff to finish my Empire, and may even start an Eldar army painted this way. Not gonna touch my Blood Angels with it though, I prefer the results from 'real' painting.

UPDATE - I've now finished a unit of 4 Guardians in this method, here's a group shot. Took around half an hour from prime to painted for 3 of them, and then 12 hours to dry from the dipping. I've also added Static Grass to finish the unit

.

- Gavin