Sternguard Veterans

Recently I have been working on another squad of space marines. With no spray yet, due on part on lack of funds, I can not work on any vehicles which just keep piling up on my projects list. That is going to be a lot of fun... On to the sternguards!

Here are the first two sternguards of my first five man squad that I might expand into two squads, but that would be much later. Using a combination of Blood Angels Death Company, Dark Angels and perhaps Grey Knight at some point, I wanted to create very knight-themed veterans, also you can see this on my terminators. I also threw in a few Forge World bits here and there too.

The first one, picture above, is mainly from Death Company bits with a generic pair of legs and a Forge World bolter. I love the different pattern bolters they released awhile back and I just had to include some in my army, fitting perfectly with my veterans. The only problem I came across for the other marines in the squad is the bolters are thinner than the standard and don't fit the hand properly. Its only a minor problem, but knowing me it will bother the hell out of me. Also made a small sword symbol on the "crotch plate" of his armor with green stuff. Not bad for a first try :)

The second is the squad's combi-melta gunner to take shots of opportunity against enemy vehicles. I went with a standard bolter for the combi-melta conversion as I didn't want to risk my health on filing and cutting the resin Forge World bolters, also I was scared of ruining the weapon in the process. I am glad the parchment between his legs came out well, writing always sucks to paint.

All that is left is their backpacks and varnish and they'll be done. I'll hopefully post images of the others later this week.

Dark Eldar Archon

As a side project, I am working on a small dark eldar force just because they look cool, heh. After much thought of it I decided to do the Kabal of the Dying Sun as my paint scheme...

And thus here he is! It is amazing how much detail are in these newer models. All in all, it wasn't a complex paint job and I went with a head from the warriors squad all because I misplaced the head I was going to use (I still hate myself over that), but he is a cool model. Most of paint job was from some tutorials on the GW site on the dark eldar except for the armor, which is just some Necron Abyss with a blood red highlight to get the kabal's proper color scheme. The dulled down gold was just a simple heavy black wash over gold and a silver highlight.

This will probably be the only mention of the dark eldar for a good while. I decided to focus on my marines and then orks since I love those lunatics.

Knowledge is Power: Origins of the Sable Swords

Continuing on from before a long while back when I first introduced I am making fan fiction of the Sable Swords, I mentioned I am slowly telling their story through a series of post. Well here it is!

Origins of the Sable Swords: A Legacy Born From Mystery...

The Sable Swords are a proud and honorable chapter, fighting in the Emperor’s name wherever they can and bringing his wrath to the far-flung worlds of the Imperium. However many outsiders, even including some space marine chapters, question the mysterious origins of the Sable Swords. For an odd reason, all records of the founding and first few hundred years of the chapter was lost or erased by someone for an unknown purpose. To make it more questionable, only one figure has survived this, Exallmen, the most coveted hero of the chapter. He is the only person to pass on the knowledge and practices the chapter currently conducts from the lost days before disappearing him-self, leaving many to question Exallmen’s motives and even if he was the one responsible for erasing the chapter’s history. For whatever reason, Exallmen left behind a chapter devoted to honor and purity. From him, many brothers fight to live up to his name and prove their loyalty to the Emperor, but also to recover what they had lost. For not only to they fight the enemies of man, but scour the galaxy in search of clues of the relics Exallmen ordered them to find, supposedly all from the chapter itself. Why Exallmen would scatter them if he did is unknown and may stay a mystery till the day all the relics are recovered.

Imperial Fist Captain

I did my research of course and he is the captain of 5th Company by his shoulder  plate trim.

For fun and for a friend of mine I decided to changed things up with space marines with a captain of the Imperial Fists. He always liked the fists and their successor chapters so it was just natural I picked one of them.

Rather subtle, but he does have some conversion work in the form of his thunderhammer. If I remember correctly (I did this months ago when I wasn't posting) I used the hand and handle section of a Blood Angel glaive encarmine, the arm and part of the handle of a power axe from the assault marine squad and the head and power generator section of an assault terminator hammer. Not the most clean conversion job, but painted you can't even tell so I declare it a success. The rest of him was made using the space marine captain set with the head from left over bitz I have.

The most annoying and tedious part of this was the fact he is almost entirely the two colors I hate doing the most, yellow and white. White I already know the frustration with it from the white possessed marines and my Sable Swords, but yellow I was rather worried about since I never did it before. Looking up a method online to get a good yellow I went with one that including a layer or two of Iylanden Darksun (sorry for my misspelling of the name if so) washed in Oygren Flesh followed by a layer of more Darksun on select areas to create a sort of shading. Lastly I highlighted in Bleached Bone.

As for the Imperial Fist emblem, I tried the water transfer sheets, but as always they are highly tedious and half of the time they came out lopsided or with bumps so I resorted to free handing. Making sure I captured all the major parts of the emblem, I came out with a successful chapter symbol.

The Chapter So Far...

As the past posts suggest, I am collecting a space marine army of the Sable Swords chapter, an official chapter that I am throwing my own twists and creativity into (Hell... I think they have a total of 10 sentences devoted to them). The biggest addition is the different characters and the organization of 1st Company (aka veteran company) into a knightly order called the Black Chalice Knights. I'll save more info on the chapter as I slowly introduce the characters and different aspects of chapter they represent.

On a more tabletop level, I am collecting an army representing that of 2nd Company and members of 1st Company with Kozri'el Icaden, Knight-Captain of 1st Company, leading my force. My friend Josh is also doing a Sable Swords army based around these ideas and is collecting 4th Company with members of 1st as well, but with Chapter Master Guildas himself heading the force. 

Sorry for the far shot, only way I can get the entire force in the photo.

Here is my force as it standing. A scout was lost to the warp for a good while forcing me to play without him, but the Emperor has protected him and has returned to the chapter. Since my last post here have been the new additions.

-Tactical Squad Aratus has been completely finish and also a plasma gunner was made to switch out the flamer.

-Chaplain Iscariot, my personal best painted model I have ever done.

-Assault Squad Tregan

-Finished Eboran's (the dreadnought) base and scratched built a pair of twin-linked autocannons (Using a tutorial from Ron Saikowski) for him to use instead of an assault cannon and dreadnought arm.

Yeah not a lot, but school does that to your hobby life...

Besides that, here is my center piece model for my army. I present you Knight-Captain Kozri'el Icaden, Hero of Grimhall, converted and painted by Ron Saikowski. Utterly fantastic model, I am glad I got him.

Eventually I intend of commissioning another model of Icaden in power armor to use for different strategies and represent him in the armor Silverflame, but that's a story for another time.

1st Possessed Done

After what must of been two weeks and a half, I have finally finished painting the first of five possessed marines. I have no idea why it took me so long, I did five tactical marines in less time. I guess its a combination of new stuff I had to paint (the flesh colors) and my dreaded nemesis white paint. I hate white paint with a passion. Luckily I got to come out pretty well.

For those of you who want to have fleshyness (what I call it) to your figures, its very simple. I first put on a layer of elf flesh followed by a heavy wash of oygren flesh (can't trust me on spelling there). Then if you want some highlights, do very light layer of elf flesh or another flesh color. Your choice there.

Squad Aratus: Ready for Combat; Practice Practice Practice

A new idea I am going to be implementing, and luckily haven't messed it up from my previous squads, is I am going to have a very individualistic army. By that I mean every sergeant of each squad will have their own unique appearance and every marine without a helmet won't have the same head as another (my scouts being the exception as their heads look pretty similar). This here is Sergeant Aratus and his currently five man strong squad, I'll be boosting the squad to full strength soon.

This marine here, the squad's flamethrower, is my personal favorite. There is something about him that makes me like him so much. Be it the pose or paint job, I can't help but give this guy some praise. He is truly a badass looking dude.

Also I would like to note the vast improvement between my first tactical squad and my new one. The marine on the left is from Squad Daceus and is obviously the older model. The time difference is only about a year, so for those of you who think you can't paint, just look what a year of refinement can do. Just trying a new technique, such as highlighting, drybrushing and washing, you can vastly improve the quality of your miniatures. That's what I did. You can do it as long as you put your mind to it! I even have older models still around that are even worse than the one on the left.  :)

Here is another example. I've been doing chapter emblems for even less time (the left being about 8 months ago and the other two days ago). While I still need a lot more practice, they are improving. Practice surely does have its effects, while not immediately, will give you that satisfied feeling when you compare you old miniatures to your more recent ones. Also if you look hard, but you can see the improvements on the aquila symbol on their chests. I use to hate painting them, but now I love painting them.

So for those of you not enjoying your painting right now, use me as an example of what happens if you keep at it. You always have the potential to create very nice looking models, just you have to decide to.