Karl's Guard Project Log

[Karnage]

NOTE TO NEW READERS
==================

Hi, and welcome to my little Project Log here. This is the first (and only, no pun intended at all) project log that I've ever done, and it's following the painting and assembly of my Imperial Guard Regiment, the 812th Valaran Guard.

The pictures contained in the first couple of pages of this Log are my attempts at painting while only just reentering the hobby, and are nowhere near an indication (at least in my opinion anyway) of how things are later in the journal. The whole reason I put this journal up is to give me both motivation to get the whole army done, and also to chart my progression in terms of painting skill and general modelling technique. I think I've managed to do that so far but we shall see.

And with that, on with the log, I hope you enjoy

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OK, this is the first time I've really tried anything like this so it should be interesting to see how it goes. Since I came back to playing 40K I've been trying to reassemble my battered Imperial Guard army into something I can use to maybe actually WIN some games this time. I think I'm doing OK so far, but an army never really looks the part until it's painted.....so that's what needs to be done, using all of the relatively substandard skills in my arsenal to do so. Once I'm able to clear some room in this bombsite I call my bedroom/workroom I'll put up pictures of my complete army, but until then, let's focus on what's been painted up so far

The first picture I have for you is a WIP shot of the Commissariat of the army.



This shot was taken around half hour ago, which explains the slightly dull look on the models. They've also not had any highlights applied yet, with only some overbrushing and washing done on the flesh and also some overbrushing of Blood Red over the Foundation Mechrite Red on the Commissars' uniforms. For the black, it's largely just the standard Chaos Black primer coat, although with a few brush strokes in terms of retouching certain areas.

And of course as far as my next pictures of painted models, it wouldn't be a Guard journal without some tanks now would it?

Shot Removed due to space constraints. newer photos further in log

Here are the Chimera and Leman Russ I have painted at the moment, with a 2nd unpainted Russ waiting in the wings. This Chimera is going to be used to transport a Storm Trooper squad. The two Russes I have as two of my Heavy Support choices, with possibly a Demolisher or Basilisk to join them (my last Basilisk, purchased in 1997, has sadly been destroyed after years of neglect and misuse, despite all the best efforts of the Techpriests to restore it)

That's all I have for you at the moment, but I will take a few pictures of some of my other stuff later on in the week for you. As always with my posts here, comments, questions and criticism/advice is always welcome, as I intend to try and make this log an interactive experience for you all.

Thanks for reading,
Karl

[Luthien]

woah female commissar
real old school guard there, i love the valhallan officer

[Karnage]

Yeah, there are a good few of my Guard models that are from my original time playing 2nd edition from 1997-1999. The female Commissar however was a recent EBay purchase.

I have some other Mordian/Catachan models from the old days that may yet see a return in my new army, however as the new models I have bought are mostly Cadian I am still thinking how to incorporate some of the old stuff, if I incorporate it at all.

What I WILL be having in the army though is what is shown in the next few posts :


Kasrkin


Anti Tank Squad


Fire Support


Mortars

[Karnage]

And now the next load of pictures :


Sentinels


Tanks!!!


And the next post shall contain pictures of miscellaneous troops in my lovely army case

[Karnage]

And finally :


Troops in a case


More troops in a case

And that's the task that stands before me. Hopefully soon I shall have more lovely painted pictures for you

[Karnage]

Well, work has started again, and the second Leman Russ has now had it's first coat of paint applied



And now that the sun is out again and we're back in natural light, a new Commissar group shot!


More to come later...

[jasevx]

Coming along nicely, the Imperial is fighting back on the logs again!

[Karnage]

Been a couple of days, but here's a WIP shot of my first painted squad of Guard



Not entirely sure how much more detail I'll go into in terms of how much shading/highlighting to do, mainly due to the rank and file nature of the standard Guardsmen. Still any ideas on what colours to use for shading/highlighting would be appreciated, the current colour scheme is Catachan Green, Foundation Charadon Granite for the armour, and Tallarn Flesh for the fleshcoat, of course. Metallics are done in old-formulation (17.5 ml pot) Boltgun Metal.

All other comments/criticisms also gratefully accepted

[Ninners]

Looking good so far, the variation between all the commisars is really great

Are the bases going to be made the same because the commisar on the far left has a green base but the others have brown

keep up the good work

[Karnage]

Yeah, the green lip around the base is the remnants of an older paint job, back when I had my own gaming table and it was predominately green. When I left the hobby the first time, my old playing surface went out following a large clearout of stuff in my house. I prefer the gravel texture that I've got on the newer stuff, so will likely go for a gravel/earth surface on the next table I set up

[Luthien]

o yeah i just started my guard army, im gonna rip that valhallan/commissar idea
the guardsmen look good too

[The Laughing God]

The green on the guard looks really good so far. I also like all of the different commisars. The Leman Russ is coming along too.

I'll be watching this thread, Great job so far!

-The Laughing God-

[Karnage]

And now for something I should have put at the front really, my Workspace picture. It may give you some hints on what else I'm working on besides the normal squads

Photo lost to the annals of time (sadly). If I can find it again I'll reupload it.

More updates soon hopefully

[Ross]

Nice work so far mate! I never realised there were that many commissar models available!

IMO you need at least one highlight on those rank and file guys. I know they don't stay on the table long, but think how proud you'll be of them while they are

[Karnage]

Yeah I didn't really want to use the same models for 2 different Commissars, although I have to admit two of them aren't actually Commissars at all. One (the center one on my daylight shot) is the Mordian Lieutenant model, while the far left one on the same shot is the Valhallan Lieutenant. The Mordian's repainted from a small Mordian detachment I have, while the Valhallan was purchased back in 2000 as a tip from the old manager of GW Swansea (can't remember his name for the life of me now, think it was Paul something) when I was at one of the old Christmas Shopping "Invitational" nights looking for some Guard stuff.

As for the highlights, I'm thinking of Camo Green for the green parts of the Guardsmen, but not sure of what might be the best highlight for Charadon Granite, does anyone have any suggestions?

[Karnage]

Tried some highlighting on the second squad of Guard that I'm currently working on (complete with out of shot Autocannon Heavy Weapons team) and this is the result:



Not bad, although I think my drybrush has left some metallic flakes from when I was using it for my tanks across the models, although not enough to be noticeable on the tabletop I think. Although just to be safe I should probably get a separate brush for drybrushing non-metallics before I highlight the other squad.

Things are going quite quickly now, hopefully I can get some good weather and some space to spray some more stuff ready for basecoating, otherwise I may have to do what I did with these guys and keep brush undercoating :S

Hopefully more updates later in the week, if not later today (all things being well).

[Karnage]

Right then, seeing as it's nearly a week since I started this log, I figured I might as well throw out a general progress report. The force is progressing well, and I have decided to throw out a group shot of what's been done so far here:



As you can see, this is pretty much what has been finished (with the exceptions of the Russ at the back and the Autocannon crew in Squad 2) of the army. Funnily enough I think this may have been the most of one army I've ever managed to actually paint up, so a potentially major milestone for me there

You may also see 2 of my Sentinels, my Khorne Berzerker conversion from another thread (in M,P & T General) and some old undercoated minis like that Catachan Flamer guy over there. Most of my Catachan models are pretty much in limbo at the moment due to my decision to use what I consider to be the far superior Cadian minis, but who knows, maybe with the advent of Apocalypse I can put together a combined regiment.

Seeing as there's this evil 4 image limit on posts, I'll limit the closeup shots to the squads rather than the already-been-seen-to-death Commissars and tanks, however if you want to see what has been done to a certain unit at any time just let me know.


Guard Squad 1, given simple highlights, but still one or two minor details to be painted in (belts, sarge's teeth etc).


The slightly more Work in Progress Squad 2. Note that all have been given highlighting, but the Autocannon team needs the most work done, with the backpacks, gun, surrounding sandbags and the basing all to be completed on it. However once this is done I should have a nice grounding on how to get the other HWTs done.

Interesting note on the colour scheme though, Once the highlighting and shading work on the infantry squads had been finished, I noticed it had a rather uncanny resemblance to the WW2-era German Army uniforms. Strictly by accident I appear to have stumbled across a common scheme which in my opinion seems to suit the Cadian-style Guardsmen well, and is relatively easy to paint with little to no mixing required. I think I may stick with this scheme, albeit with variations as far as the Kasrkin etc go, in order to allow them to stand out from the rank and file.

Anyway, enough of me rambling on, but alas the light has faded in my room now so further painting would be pointless. Still, any comments,criticism,ideas or questions are all still gladly taken so keep them coming, and I'll gladly take all ideas on board and answer any questions you might have.

Karl

[Karnage]

Another update today, although not one I'm entirely happy with . Still, I want to try and show the process of making the army, warts and all.

In this case, the warts in question happen to be my Ratling squad.



The colour scheme for the snipers SEEMED like a good idea, and may yet still be one, but I'm not happy with their current state at the moment. It seems the combination of my partially arthritic hands and parts of the colour scheme have conspired against me to make seemingly horrible looking minis. I think I'll need to change the hair on some of them, but not sure how to get the hair looking good without hideously mangling my brush on the sculpted tufts the Ratlings have on their heads.

Still, hopefully I can find a way to salvage them a bit tomorrow.

In other news, the army (even in some of it's unpainted glory) will hopefully get it's first proper game on Saturday, I may put how it does as part of this log, and make it a sort of full on army log, we shall see

That's all for now, hopefully more news for you soon....if anyone's still watching and not been scared off by the bad paintjobs :P

[schoolcormorant]

like the scheme, quite cool.

you're painting isn't bad, you should see some of the crap i've painted.

SC

[Karnage]

Aye, looking back at them I think they can be "saved"..if that's the right word to use. I suppose it's just me being a bit annoyed at myself about how bad I think the snipers look compared to the rest of the army, and being a bit of a perfectionist fool about the whole thing