Braun II Skitarii

[Apologist]

+++Edit+++
Pics appear throughout; here's a preview:

Hypaspist maniple


COG Combat Ogryns


True-scale Astartes Tech-aspirants

Hey guys,
Thought I'd throw up a log of the army I'm taking to Dark Stars 2007: the Braun II Skitarii.

I'm using bretonnian men-at-arms as the basis for the tech-guard; and to add something a little different, I'm going to run some squads of borg-style servitors.

Here's the first three pieces for the army; some standard (and lovely) sculpts. The campaign weekend is coming up quickly, so they're receiving a quick paintjob (that's my excuse, and I'm sticking by it).

Apologies for the poor quality of the picture - it was dark when I got up this morning!

There's another three finished, but the camera ran out of puff before I could take them.

Not sure on basing yet; my cat Graham suggested urban basing, which I think would look spiffy, so I may run with that. We've got a martian board, but I'm not sure how well red-on-red would look.

Pax, fleshbags.

[Bob Hunk]

More exquisite models from Apologist! I love the details around the Tech Priests head, and it's nice to see a different coloured flame for a change.

Can't wait to see the rest.

[omricon]

more more! This is good stuff. Paintjob isnt bad either despite your self insulting of it.

[Voronwe[MQ]]

Skitarius early W.I.P. Thought I'd show you it for the variant Skitarii armour type and concept. Good luck with the army; it is looking too good so far!



Voronwe

[GrahamGilchrist]

Wow Apologist those are looking great already!. I love the checks on the hood and like bob_hunk said, the green flame is somehow more mechanicus-like, like it was burning copper or zinc or something

[Apologist]

More painting done for these guys:
two more haemoncolytes; another techpriest enginseers; three tech-servitors and the Magos Militaris.

Mmm... bluralicious...


More pics here:
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m...VI%20Skitarii/

Thanks for all the comments so far. The log should get a bit more interesting when I get to the troops.

[Voronwe[MQ]]

There is some very good paintings, though will you paint a cog-trim on the Magos Militaris' robes? It looks a bit unadorned compared to the Enginseers.

GrahamGilchrist's right; the green flame looks like burning zink or copper. I'll borrow this great idea for my Legio Cybernetica Cohort!

Voronwe

[Apologist]

Thanks for all the kinds words, cats.

Digging the concept sketch, Voronwe; my skitarii are going to have similar segmented shoulder armour.

I'm in two minds about the Magos, to be honest. I need him to look sufficiently different from the Enginseers...

Option 1: Paint a square spiral design in soft red over all of his robes; effectively embellishing him.

Option 2: Go back and paint his hood a different colour ? either a dark green-grey, or cream.

However, I'm going to hold off on changing him at the moment; until I've got a better idea of what I'm going to use as my Arch-Magos (Inquisitor Lord). Obviously the Arch-Magos will have to be more ornate (as befits his rank) than a run-of-the-mill Magos... Currently, I'm leaning towards the ][nquisitor familiar with a head swap as the basis ? sufficiently tall and sinister, and pleasingly stripped-back. I'm planning on surrounding him with homunculi, cherubim and labmats to carry all his equipment; leaving his dual brain (the second carried by a faithful servant) to deal with important stuff like strategy and tactics!

Coming up in next week's exciting update: the first models in the Servitor cell.

Stay tuned, fleshbags!

[Voronwe[MQ]]

Thanks for the kind words. How're you going to do the segmentation? Two, three different sizes of cut-down plastic piping? Green Stuff?

The 'square spiral' is a stylised gene double-spiral and could be used if the Magos Militaris in question has 'grades' within the Collegia Biologis. Changing the colour of the hood will not be enough, though I'd say you keep it as it is, perhaps with tiny 'cogs from the white line border-line, or maybe checks there too? You could perhaps give the robe a non-thinned-out Black Ink wash and then some stylised gene double-spirals and digits or liturgy?

Fleshbags staying tuned!

Voronwe

[firestorm40k]

I like this army so far, I'm really looking forward to seeing how it develops!

[Voronwe[MQ]]

Who don't?

Voronwe

[Apologist]

Okay, I lied about the servitors. I'm still waiting for some parts for the servitors, so I got stuck into the skitarii (infantry) themselves instead. Servitors will probably come next week sometime.

In the meantime, here's an update on the troops, and a few clearer piccies of the 'completed' stuff.

Here's how the first maniple looks (WIP):


They still need arms and shoulderpads on their right side; and also (perhaps) some customised guns. I used greenstuff for the hoods, but took the pictures in black and white to better demonstrate how these guys will look once primed.

Thanks for the kind words. How're you going to do the segmentation? Two, three different sizes of cut-down plastic piping? Green Stuff?

A picture's worth a thousand words:

Essentially, two different widths of L-shaped plastic girder cut and glued together, then the corners nicked off carefully.

The 'square spiral' is a stylised gene double-spiral

I actually meant something along these lines:
http://www.sandcarveddesigns.com/A43...petroglyph.JPG
as I don't see the Collegia Martial being related to the Collegia Biologis... but that said, a gene-helix design would be a brill addition to the Haemolytes and Magi Biologis.

A bit of clarification for people who'd like to know more about the adeptus mechanicus... It's split into Colleges, each dealing with a different aspect of knowledge – Martial for warfare, iologis for biology, Genetor for genetics etc.

Here's a link that I found really useful for info.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adeptus_Mechanicus

There are also some larger/clearer pics of the techpriests etc up at my Photobucket account:
http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m...VI%20Skitarii/

Next time: Either more complete skitarii, or the beginnings of a servitor cell.

[jasevx]

Looking Great!

[Dominus Ex Machina]

Wow, these are great! Would you mind telling me how you paint your lovely deep red? I've just ordered an inquisitor scale tech priest, and I'd love to paint him like that!

[Grenader]

Great conversions! I can't wait to see those Skitarii finished and so far everything is painted top notch.

[Apologist]

Wow, these are great! Would you mind telling me how you paint your lovely deep red? I've just ordered an inquisitor scale tech priest, and I'd love to paint him like that!

It's a pretty simply technique; the only unusual bit is how thick I use my paints – I like quite a strong 'cel-shaded' look to my miniatures, because it emphasises the angles on the models and makes them look brutal. Not a technique to use on elves!

1: Black undercoat.
2: Paint a coat of scab red. I don't water my paints down very much at all for base-painting: something like one part water to five parts paint. This will give you a rich (but not solid) colour that will be stronger in the recesses.
3: Paint a second coat of scab red, staying out of the recesses. Because of the black undercoat and the fact you're overlaying the colour that's already there in parts, it'll give you natural shading that'll look a bit like cel-shading (i.e. quite strong bands of colour).
4: Paint a thinner coat (one parts water to three paint) of 50:50 scab red and red gore on the raised areas of the cloth. This coat should cover roughly half of the area of the cloth.
5: Draw pure, neat blood red across the extreme highlights and areas you want to emphasise.

For an Inquisitor scale model, I'd recommend putting in some intermediary stages. Aside from anything else, the Inquisitor-scale ad mech sculpts have quite flat robes with few folds. Glazing with two or three coats of green, yellow or purple ink will really make the red pop at this scale.

[Dominus Ex Machina]

Thanks a lot! I'll experiment a bit with this before it comes to painting the real thing.

Again, thanks!

[Apologist]

No pics on this update, I'm afraid, but expect some on monday.
I've got stuck into my servitors (thanks to School Cormorant for the more than generous trade), and bits of metal and plastic are flying.

I've come up with a fairly simple method of integrating the lasguns into their arms; but wanted to run a quick poll about proportions in the squads.

First off, I'm using a mix of regular ol' servitors and my own custom brand of cultist/catachan servitors. I need thirty in total; so if you saw them across the table, would you prefer:
A) Two squads of cultist conversion and one squad of 'official' servitors.
or
B) Three squads, each with three or so 'official' servitors, and the rest made up of the conversions?

Following on from that, I've got lots of ideas for random technoarcana bits for the servitors... All the heavy and special weapons will be properly represented with proper guns, but I'd quite like to have one or two without their lasguns represented (to allow for the weirder stuff). Think I'll run into any WYSIWYG problems?

On a completely random note, does anyone have any gun servitors they'd be willing to sell/trade?
I'm also on the lookout for the plastic cherub from the new Empire general sprue.

Pax, fleshbags.

[jasevx]

Hi, think were on the same track! So what are codex are you using WH or L&D?

On the mix and match if it doesn't effect your weapon choices, id keep each type seperately.

looking great tho!

[scrubout]

What an excellent basis for the skittari, scrubout likes.

I'm not sure about the squad sizes question, however, I'd suggest keeping the 'count as' lasgun conversions simplistic and not 'over the top'...like the difference is there but not 'glaring'. If you understand what I 'mean'.

-peace out
scrubout:skull: