My hands, they too are golden (PH Word Bearers)

[Jericho]

Didn't get quite as much done this weekend as I would have liked, but still not terrible progress. Here's the two color test figs hanging out with their babysitter.

Helped out a bit with running a tourney on Saturday and did some painting afterwards. Not much Sunday, but I did paint the chapter badge on the shoulder that I had sculpted earlier and it really helped pop the color scheme a lot. I'll definitely be doing more of those throughout the army where I can, just depends on how many Grey Knight shoulder pads I can get off local gamers for free and then start mass producing them

I'll take a little bit of time to figure out colors on these guys, for example I'm not sure how I want to do the guns and the red on the shoulder/knee pads might need to be switched to something more vibrant like on the inner robes of the Custodian for added contrast. Can't have these guys being too dull...

[Jericho]

So after another painting session last night messing around with my WB test figs, I am getting really close on them.

I decided to paint the guns flat black with plain old grey hilights. Doing more hot rod flames on the front of red guns and then glow effects on the coils would have been massive overkill and I didn't want to introduce another color into the scheme at this point. So I'm deviating slightly from the colors in the old Index Astartes article... oh well

After that I did the glow effect on the plasma cannon. Blended up the coils in turquoise/white, then tried to do a subtle glow with a two stage airbrush blend around them. By process of elimination I'm gonna figure out how to use this damn contraption again, and I think I'm running out of mistakes to make... I just about blew it on the plasma cannon as my trigger technique was totally lacking. I was letting go of the trigger instead of shutting off the paint flow prior to letting go and stopping the air flow. This combined with a less than 100% clean nozzle (again) means I was getting a huge blast of paint every time I let go of the trigger. Basically I painted 2/3 of the plasma cannon turquoise and half of it off-white. It took about a billion washes to make the glow effect subtle again and then I had to re-hilight the white coils. Oh well, it does look pretty badass.

Similar technique was used to give the eyes a fiery red/orange look with some glow, but it was all done with brushed on paint/washes and not the airbrush.

What's left on these guys before I can show them off? Not much, really. Got to finish up some of the tiny little details like the 2-3 skulls, finish up the black on the guns (easy enough) and then do a bit of sponged on paint chips for weathering. Might do one more extreme hilight on a few choice surfaces of the grey armor for added contrast, as they are still very subtle and that isn't necessarily what you want for the tabletop. I still have to do my taxes (better slightly late than never) and some other errands, but it won't be long now before these guys are done and I'm moving on to the next batch. Still need more bases, but I can easily start doing the priming/airbrushing without them.

Oh, and I also figured out that when I accidentally overspray on the grey armor, it can be fixed with liberal application of Bastion Grey and just tons of washes of Badab Black for shading. I wasn't sure if it was going to match, as the shading on these models is done with my black and grey primer. Hard to reapply those for touchups

[BeatTheBeat]

Sooooooo... this log is insanely good already.

Cheers,
BTB

[Jericho]

Hrm, I can't stop thinking about Terminators. Need to do some baby Contemptor style ones with Tartaros upper bodies and Grey Knight legs/heads for the script and books on 'em. I think I would have to try and make them look like they have dreadnought CCW style fists as well... Yes, that's exactly what I need to do

[avragehuman]

I'm a fan! very common conversion but it's an effective one. I've seen it done badly but you really pulled it off. It looks pre heresy, not space high elf. Well done.

[Jericho]

Glad you like it, making Custodes look like Custodes and not just an elf/Grey Knight with a bolter on the end of a stick is tricky but rewarding

[Jericho]

Didn't really do much today, but I did take a picture that you might be interested to see

[ZAChos]

Gotta have some mark IV love. They look the business, despite being treacherous kinslayers.

[superdupermatt]

are you using Grey Knight shoulder pads and moulding on the flame or starting from scratch? Either way it's impressive!

[Jericho]

Thanks guys

As for the shoulder pad/chapter badge, it started out as a GK shoulder pad and had the sword carefully trimmed away. The flames were added with greenstuff. Not looking forward to doing a few dozen more of those... just getting the pads will be hard enough!

As a side note, if anyone has a few spares of the pads I've used so far they would be greatly appreciated

[Jericho]

Got in a painting session last night. Busted out the airbrush to basecoat the Thousand Son test fig for the Sternguard unit. Reds are very nearly done, as are most of the other basecoats and washes on the figure. Without the shoulder pads, this guy painted up a lot quicker than the other two WBs did. I'll certainly have to experiment a bit more about leaving the guys not quite fully assembled until after being sprayed.

As always, pics to follow when there's something worth looking at!

[DeSnifter]

I must disagree with avragehuman. I still think the models just look like high elf phoenix guards with space marine shoulder pads. I think that this is due to several factors. Foremost I think it is the color palate you have chosen. The painting itself is absolutely phenomenal and shows great skill, however Custodes have a very classic image of shining gold armor and strong red robes. The darker silver tones make the model look more like a high elf to me than a Custodes IMO. Perhaps making the Custodes have a brighter gold and a more vibrant red would help contrast their purity against the dark and more earthen tones of the Word Bearers. I also think the decision to retain the flames on the robes, while an excellent opportunity to showcase your skills, makes the model look that much more like a phoenix guard with some tech bits glued on. I think addressing these suggestions would definitely make these models look more like the classic image of Custodes. The only other suggestion I could make would be to use sanguinary guard chests in the place of the high elf chests as that is closer to what we have seen represented in the artwork. Otherwise the work is absolutely phenomenal, and the word bearers themselves are looking incredibly promising.

[Jericho]

I think a lot of your comments about the Custodes are entirely fair. I knew that changing up the red and gold color scheme would potentially cause a lot of issues. When I do the third one, the leader of the group, he will be in the more traditional gold, gold and more gold color scheme. Instead of being half bronze half gold, there will be an absolute bare minimum of bronze just to add definition to a few areas. His iconography will include more eagles and lightning bolts, which are too much hassle to do on all of them I will likely remove the flames from his cloak as well, and I might do some freehand trim or something instead. Hopefully he'll be a bit more like what you'd expect in a Custodian

Sadly I don't think that you could ever use a Marine's torso on a Phoenix Guard body. The Greatsword torso is tiny compared to a regular SM torso, which in turn is tiny compared to the elaborate Sanguinary Guard torsos with their massive collars and abs that extend down to the model's thighs for some reason. When doing the first conversion, I hacked up a plastic SM chest piece and it was simply way too big in all dimensions to fit.

Cheers, I do sincerely appreciate the constructive critique as much as anything. Hopefully the Thousand Son model turns out as nicely as the WBs

[DeSnifter]

Thats what I was afraid of with the scale difference, however I look forward to seeing the Custodes leader and the Thousand Son!

[Jericho]

Proof that I never finish anything before moving on to the next project, 1 almost finished Thousand Son. The other shoulder pad remains separate as I haven't decided how to do the chapter badge (decal, greenstuff, custom brass etch, divine intervention, etc.).

After the varnish I think he might need 1 more hilight on the red, but that's a project for another day!

[Catferret]

He is very nicely painted but there's something that makes me think it's not quite right. I think it might be the small area of white on the shoulder pad. It looks randomly tagged on just now. It may look better with the second pad completed of course.

Although using the white on the banding at the edge of the other armour plates may help too. I'm sure I saw something like that in one of the Collected Visions books.

[Jericho]

I'm a bad man, I converted up and started painting a Salamanders dreadnought Sunday/Monday instead of working on something for this project. So strange going back to painting the way I did in ~1999 after using a totally new/different technique on this batch! I suppose it's not all retro technique, I basecoated with airbrush and did a thinned Mud wash on the boltgun metal parts instead of digging around for my old Black Ink

Anyway the Dread had some mods, including a DE Corsair's lizard cloak added in the style of a SW fur pelt, plus the stereotypical lava base conversions done to make a starter set Dread look less boring. He'll likely use the spare arms from my other Dread, ie. autocannon/missile launcher. I'll post a pic of the Dread when it's done

@Catferret, thanks for the ideas about using more white on the fig. When I got to painting him, I knew I'd have to be careful to add more scrolls and other details on the next minis in the squad to break up all that red. Keep in mind that the chapter badges etc. will all be white, which will help tie in to the shoulder pad trim etc.

[Jericho]

Lost an entire day to fixing my computer. Bootcamp Windows XP partition kicked the bucket, so I had to back up files, format and upgrade to Win7 Pro. Still itching to slap some paint this week, I'll try to finish the Salamanders dread (might not get to the base right away) and then get back to work on WBs and KSons. Don't have any more bases for them yet, but hey I'll be pinning them all to their bases anyway so I can stick the pins into cork or something while I paint. Getting sick of waiting as you can tell

I should clarify that I still haven't got everything installed and running yet on the Win7 front... hopefully doesn't take up much more of my time though, it was painful enough dealing with everything yesterday

[Jericho]

OK so I'll start by confessing I haven't done much work on the WB project lately... resin bases for the army continue to elude me.

The Dread did get finished for the Sallies tho, and for a quick job I'm quite pleased with it (pics to come later on). As I am in a 3+ kind of mood and lacking in supplies for the WBs, I have been thinking more and more about finishing up some stragglers for previous Marine armies to get them ready for use in 6th edition. The Salamanders will be getting some Fast Attack choices (their first ones ever!) in the form of a Landspeeder Storm for my Scouts and a Stormtalon to escort them into the flanks of the enemy. If it takes a really long time to get in bases, I might be able to get a squad of Sternguard done for them too.

The Storm has been mostly built already, just need to do some more conversion work on it. I gave it a chin-mounted assault cannon to match the look of the Stormtalon better, and I will be adding doors to the transport section to make it 1/10 the work to paint the thing. No interior detail kinda sucks, but hey I'm lazy As a side note, the doors will be gull-wing style so if it were possible to open them, it would have looked badass... lol Overall I'm very pleased with the Storm kit, it assembles better than the standard Landspeeder (smaller gaps!) and the fact that you get 5 extra Scouts basically for free is nice. It just sucks when the guys riding the speeder have boltguns when your painted scouts for the army have BP/CCW...

The Stormtalon gunship is something of an oddity for me. I really like certain aspects of the design, but the stock build just doesn't do it for me. Extensive conversions will be done, including downsizing the chin mounted cannons to Ravenwing Landspeeder scale, streamlining the roof and mounting some Contemptor pattern cyclone launcher missile racks on the roof. The tail will also likely be reworked. Landing gear, instead of being on the guns, will either be removed entirely (hey Landspeeders don't have any landing gear and nobody ever complains about that!) or integrated into the big pegs that the stock missile pods are mounted to.

I might do a super ghetto sketch or Photoshop mockup later, which I could then upload once I take a photo of the new Dread.

[jamesterjlrb]

Looking nice! Hope to see some more updates soon!