Wolfracer painting log (Leman Russ WIP!)

[wolfracer]

I was noticing people just post anything they've been painting, so I figured I'd post what I've been painting this week

When I started painting them I googled Imperial Guard colour schemes and was surprised that there's very few people who post interesting schemes online, mostly just the standard colour schemes, not like most my other armies where I google them and see a million ways of painting them.

The imperial guard are kinda Tyranid related because I unashamedly stole the colour scheme from the Starship Troopers movies... Arachnids, Tyranids, ya know... anyway, here they are...

My overall goal was to speed paint them, and they came out ok but took 35 minutes each to paint which means it took about 3 hours to paint 5. For me to actually want to collect a whole army it'd be nice if I could bring that down a bit so I can get maybe 30-50 basic guardsmen down in a single weekend.

Also I'm thinking of getting the snapfit IG models. Has anyone had experience with them? Coz it took me 35 minutes each to paint them but it took another 20 minutes or so to actually assemble the damned things, which is going to annoy me when I have to assemble 50 of the buggers. I'm thinking I'll buy 40 or so snap fit models, a few metal blisters of special weapons and buy plastic sergeant bitz off ebay to make it up to about 50 models total.







They do look a bit messy zoomed in this close, but from any sort of reasonable viewing distance like 1 and a half feet or further you can't really see the blotchiness.

[Hellbreaker]

Looks neat and the blotchiness up close doesn't matter. As you said in your post they're speedpainted so I don't expect Golden Demon standard.

If you want to cut down the painting time try doing batches, a speed paint doesn't require your full attention really so painting three or four models at a time helps. It might take a handful of minutes longer on average but it's not going to be anywhere near 3 hours.

[Helonion]

They look pretty damn good. Just wish you drilled holes for the barrels >_> Adds a ton of realistic value.

[wolfracer]

I'm thinking of adding red details on sergeants and special weapons to make them stand out, either that or yellow, haven't decided yet.

Jun 9, 2012 8:18:46 GMT Hellbreaker said:

Looks neat and the blotchiness up close doesn't matter. As you said in your post they're speedpainted so I don't expect Golden Demon standard.

If you want to cut down the painting time try doing batches, a speed paint doesn't require your full attention really so painting three or four models at a time helps. It might take a handful of minutes longer on average but it's not going to be anywhere near 3 hours.

They were actually batch painted, I painted all 5 at once. When I said 35 minutes each I meant it took me about 3 hours to paint all 5, which is about 35 minutes per model.

Jun 9, 2012 8:38:47 GMT Helonion said:

They look pretty damn good. Just wish you drilled holes for the barrels >_> Adds a ton of realistic value.

Yeah, good idea actually. I don't think I'll drill them, but I might paint the tips black with a thin ring of metallic to look like they're bored out instead of solid.

The grenade launcher dude was actually a bit of a mess because I glued on his arm after painting the basecoat but before washing, so when I was washing him, his arm fell off because it wasn't fully dried

[wolfracer]

I bought some of the push fit IG models. I'm actually rather impressed, they look quite good. They have 2 flaws though...

One being that despite being push fit don't push together terribly well, you get a gap on the shoulder when you push them together. I ended up just clipping off the push nodule and just glued them instead and they work great. This is kinda silly though, as the models have a giant hole in the middle of their chest so they can be push fit together when really they shouldn't.

The second flaw being the pose they're in. I don't mind single pose models or models that I can't pose myself ASSUMING the standard pose looks ok, but I think they should have posed them more like the standard IG models, looking down the barrel of their guns rather than just looking straight ahead.

Aside from that, I'm pretty happy with the snap fit models. Saved me a lot of time assembling the multipose models. Honestly I hate multipose models for rank and file models and wish GW would focus more on making good single pose models. I like multipose for my elites or for conversion work, but when it comes to assembling 100 guardsmen or zombies or skinks or hormaguants, I really appreciate single pose models, especially on models that don't need every man in the squad to be dynamically posed.

[wolfracer]

Alright, I'm turning this thread into a more general painting log since I can't stay focused 1 army for more than 30 seconds

Here's a random Space Wolf I painted today, with a couple of my Bretonnians in the background...





I'm gonna start posting all my images more zoomed out because someone commented to me that my models look (please do not swear) in my pictures compared to how they look in real life, and I think that's partly because my photography skills fail (iPhone 3GS FTW!) and partly because I zoom in too far on my models, highlighting all the flaws and poor colour transitions that in real life you don't notice and look like quite natural transitions.

[roxor08]

Hey Man, I like them. They look good. You have great painting skills.

[wolfracer]

What do you guys think about their bases? I can't decide how to do them. Most of my 40k bases are grey/ash, which I think will look terrible for these guys since the models themselves are grey. I was considering either a desert scheme or a snow theme.

[wolfracer]

Continuing on my theme of being unable to focus on one army for more than 30 seconds, here's an Ork Warbuggy!

This is actually a very old model of mine that I painted almost 15 years ago as a kid. I just repainted a few bits to test out a new scheme inspired by old hot rods (the variety with black paint, lots of chrome and a flame job).

I was actually thinking of buying one of the new Ork Bommerz and painting it up with a similar scheme, but since I don't have an airbrush I wanted to test my ability to fade yellow into orange using only a brush and paint free hand flames. So this model is just the prototype for that.

[wolfracer]

I bought an old school Leman Russ model on sale for cheap which my local hobby store had sitting around for years.

Just painted one side of it to test the scheme before I went and painted the whole thing. What do you guys think? Any ideas for improvement?

The goal was a lightly weathered tank, so rather than shading it with a darker grey, I shaded it with Agrax Earthshade and then on the dark grey parts did a 2nd shade of Nuln Oil over the Agrax to give it a bit of a rusting look. I was kinda going for a look similar to ships and bridges, which are frequently repainted to stop corrosion, but still get a bit of rust around bolts and joins.

[wolfracer]

Finished off the Leman Russ. I went for a clean approach, painting solid colours then paint shading and weathering into the crevices without any highlighting. I'm undecided whether I think it needs any highlighting or just leave it how it is...

[Helonion]

In the 41st millennium, there is only PRETTY CAMO TANKS!