Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion - Paint In Progress #5

With a nice little two week break under my belt (thanks to a brief holiday and other real life commitments) I've managed to return to the Shattered Legion and started to put the finishing touches to the Tactical Squad.

For the most part this has meant tidying up the final details, such as adding on the bolters, and finishing up pouches, drake skins and the like.

The Drake skin has been highlighted with Rakarth Flesh, followed by a second highlight with white mixed in. It was given a light wash with Agrax Earthshade to tie it all together.

The bolter casing have been based with a black/grey mix, followed by edge highlights of Dawnstone and Astronomican Grey. The metal areas were done as per the original guide. Once I had highlighted both the black and the metal I washed liberally in Nuln Oil.

Any leather areas were highlighted with Steel Legion Drab. A second highlight was painted with white added to the drab. Again these areas were washed with Agrax Earthshade post highlights.

Legionnaire #1

Legionnaire #2

The legion symbol was kept reasonably crude (the reasoning being to show battle damaged nature of the armour). I did edge the symbol in Ceramite White to make it stand out.

Salamander Legion Symbol

Finally the armour has been getting an edge highlight touch up. I've also used the old GW Rotting Flesh paint to add a final highlight to the most obviously raised edges in an attempt to bring out the detail further.

Salamander Legionnaires

At the same time I have continued to work on the Contemptor, highlighting up segments of the armour to the same level.

Salamanders Contemptor

Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion - Painting Battle Damage

So we are back on the Shattered Legion track this week, and today I present the messy part of the process - painting on battle damage. The important thing for me to remember was to do this before painting any details that aren't going to be damaged up (battle damaged drake skin anybody?) It also helps to have a sergeant with a removable head (it's pinned).

I also decided to keep the damage level pretty light, so as not to obscure details (overdoing the effect on infantry is very easy to do I think). I chose to focus the bulk of the damage to areas that were likely to get more scuffed and battle worn, such as the models boots and the sergeants power fist.

Salamander Sergeant

The battle damage is done in three stages. The first two use the sponging effect (dabbing paint on with a torn bit of sponge), firstly with Rhinox Hide and then with Iron Breaker. The final stage is a fine highlight of Vallejo Metallic medium, painted on random spots or raised edges, and painted on with a fine brush.

Battle Damaged Helm

Battle Damaged Boot

Battle Damaged Power Fist

Battle Damaged Shoulder Pad

The process is fairly quick and easy and adds a nice sense of realism and a battle worn feel to the models. (Which is very relevant to the Shattered Legions of course). As you can see from the photos above and below I have yet to add anything to the right shoulder pad as I am still not sure what to put here. I'm not going to rush to do this as once I have decided it wont be too hard to redo the battle damage.

Salamanders Legionnaires #1

Salamanders Legionnaires #2

Next up then is to apply battle damage to the Iron Hands and to start painting in the smaller details, such as eye lenses, pouches and sundry adornments. As you can see from the above photos I have started to paint up the Drake skin (a wash of Dark Reaper was applied over a Rakarth Flesh base).

The Legion symbol has been shaded with some grey washes as well, although I want to revisit these as I would like to add more detail to make them a bit cleaner and allow it to stand out more.

Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion - Paint In Progress #4

Nothing new to show this week in terms of colours or scheme additions. Instead I used the week to crack on with the remaining five tactical legionnaires as well as apply some of the first touches to the Contemptor, which will be the next item on the painting agenda.

I decide to focus on getting the squad of tactical legionnaires to the same level as the first batch as all the remaining details are quite small, and it would probably prove to be more efficient to finish them all off in one hit.

I'm also still not sure how to do the Drake skin so doing the remaining members of the squad meant I had more time to mull that over as well.

Iron Hand Legionnaires 

Salamander Legionnaires 

Tactical Squad Shot

Finally here is a PIP shot of the Contemptor. At the moment the green is at the same level as that of the Tactical squad, but I have yet to do anything else. The black on the shoulders has not come out the way I had hoped (I did this with the airbrush) so I will need to tidy this up with a bit of brushwork later on down the line.

Contempter Paint In Progress

Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion - Paint In Progress #3

Originally I had planned to do the flames on these models in the traditional yellow/red colours. However having completed the first I wasn't convinced that the look was appropriate for the overall effect I wanted to achieve with this force.

My feeling was that it brightened up the models too much, and bright isn't something I associate with the remnants of an army that has had the crap beaten out of it. From a practical painting point of view I also felt that a lot of the effect would be lost if I added battle damage (something I do intend to do still).

Flame Pattern Painting

Therefore I decided to repaint the flames in the gold colour which I feel added a more utilitarian feel whilst maintaining the ornate feeling of customisation on the armour. It's also a simpler effect to achieve.

Sergeant and Legionnaire 

Legionnaires

As you can see from the photos the Legion symbol has been base coated in white, I'm not sure yet quite how to finish off the white so will come back to that.

Finally I had to have a go at the sergeants face as I've been itching to paint that since I started the squad. Working from a black basecoat I mixed in yellow/white to add highlights, and followed this up with glazes of Nuln Oil. The eye was painted yellow and glazed with red.

Sergeants Face

I'll be detailing how to do the face more specifically in the second salamanders scheme post I do (once I have figured out the last few bits and pieces).

Tactical Squad

Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion - Paint In Progress #2

So I think I'm about three weeks into painting these guys and I've finally hit the slow bit. I've also broken the painting down into more manageable chunks of five, starting with the first half of the Tactical squad.

It has also been a bit of a slow week hobby wise but there has been some small progress made. Primarily this has been edge work to the armour panels, followed by the glazes and then a touch up of the lightest highlight.

The black on the shoulder pads has also been tidied up and a glaze added. I am not going for a strong contrast here, just something that helps emphasise the natural light on the higher surfaces.

Finally for this week I have finished up the gold on the first five.

All colours so far have been painted as per the salamanders scheme post from a few weeks back.

Sergeant & Legionnaire

Legionnaires

With Iron Hand 'Test' Legionnaire

First Five of the Tactical Squad

From here I am now moving onto the colours that I have yet set on a scheme for (metal not withstanding) so it looks like a week of experimentation ahead.

Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion - Iron Hands Scheme

Although the bulk of the models in the army are Salamanders and I intended to game with them as a Salamanders force, this Shattered Legion force has four Iron Hand Legionnaires in it, spread amongst the Tactical and Pyroclast squads.

I already had the steel and gold colours planned out as part of my Salamanders scheme so my main focus was on the Black. The Forgeworld scheme is quite diverse in it's use of paints and techniques, and whilst I was quite tempted to it out I thought I'd experiment with what I had to hand. Likewise I didn't want to stick to the black I had for the Salamanders as it is quite basic and lacks some of the depth that I felt whole armour plates would need.

The 'official' Iron Hand scheme seems to limit itself to black and metal. In order to make these fit in better with the Salamanders element I decided to add gold to the shoulder pad rim.

Iron Hand Legionnaire #1

Paints

This time I didn't have a spare model to hand to act as a test piece, however there are plenty of areas on the four models that were to be painted in metal so I could experiment on these. The following is what I came up with.

The paint information for the steel and gold areas can be found on the Salamanders Scheme post.

Black Armour

Colour	Layer	Applied With	Brand
Dark Blue Grey	Directional Basecoat	Airbrush	Vallejo Model Air
Dark Sea Green	Directional Highlight	Airbrush	Vallejo Model Air
Medium Sea Grey	Directional Highlight	Airbrush	Vallejo Model Air
Nuln Oil	Wash	Brush	Citadel Wash
Medium Sea Grey	Edge Highlight	Brush	Vallejo Model Air
Administratum Grey	Edge Highlight	Brush	Citadel Layer
Lamanters Yellow	Glaze	Brush	Citadel Glaze
Druchii Violet	Stipple	Brush	Citadel Wash
Waywatcher Green	Glaze	Brush	Citadel Glaze

Close up

Once again I'll endeavour to get a step by step done shortly.

Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion - Paint In Progress #1

Good God does using an airbrush require some finesse! Too much pressure and you end up with a nice wet splodge of paint; too little and you have a kind of blobby splatter effect. Still, it's all part of the learning curve, and the CRPlus is definitely a vast improvement on the cheapy one (it has a smoother motion on the button for one thing).

This week I have made some reasonable progress, completing the black and green sprays so far, which means moving forward I'll be focusing on the brush work.

I decided to do Vulkan after the bulk of the army as I figure I'll probably have learned a few things doing the infantry and Contemptor that I can then apply to Vulkan.

Airbrushing

Turns out I also decided to fling paint all over the airbrush area (I don't recommend shaking a bottle of paint without a lid firmly attached)... In fact it was one of those sessions where everything went wrong (compressor playing silly buggers, clogging airbrushes etc. etc.)... sigh...

Still as I started out by saying, the black and green spraying is done. This means that there is some zenithal style highlights already in place (woo!).

Batch Spray Job

Liquid Mask

This is my first time working with Liquid Mask as well. I'm not sure whether I was to vigorous in removing it, left it on the model for too long or whether the primer hadn't adhered to the models properly but in some places I found it tough to remove. In some cases it even took the paint with it. Not a big deal as it is all a learning curve and easy to rectify when painting.

I did discover that a gentle scrub over the area with a wet toothbrush before using blu tack to remove the mask generated the best results for me.

Balls.

Should be easy enough to touch up.

Paint In Progress

Post Spray Legionnaires

Post Spray Fire Drakes

Post Spray Pyroclasts

Next up for the Salamanders will be getting edge highlights to all the sharp edges of the armour.I've also started work on the Iron Hands, and the scheme has started to come together really nicely. I'll have more on them soon.

Post Spray Iron Hands

Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion - Salamander Scheme #1

The following post details the colours used for the core areas of the Salamanders Legionnaires. I'll cover the colours used for the details (flesh, flames etc..) in a further post. Due to real life I ran out of time for those stages...

Likewise this post will likely be updated as I tweak things further.

So I originally planned on doing a step by step this week, after all I had the scheme laid out pretty solidly in my mind. Needless to say, things didn't quite go according to plan the first time round. (Either me being too keen with the glazing or some other painting faux pas)

Instead what I have is a model with which I practised a few techniques and also figured out the just how much I needed to tweak said scheme (it turns out, not a lot).

The bulk of the work will be done with the airbrush. For basecoat and undercoat, I have a generic cheap thing of which I don't even know the needle size but it blasts out the paint so it's all good for me. For detail work I have just got myself an Infinity CRPlus with 1.5mm needle. This should help me to make quick work of shoulder pads, faces and the lightest highlight colour on the armour.

Cheap and Cheerful

Oooo shiny...

Originally I was going to give the models a zenithal white spray of primer. I've also nixed this idea for now. I am aiming for an element of realism to these models and from my test piece I am pretty sure a similar effect can be obtained using just my main colours. I also don't want the effect to be to extreme either.

Paints

This scheme uses a number of different ranges. To keep things fairly simple all paints generally follow a theme:

• If it is in the airbrush use an airbrush specific paint (with one exception).
• For brushes, anything goes. 

The scheme itself is based around the Forgeworld scheme. I replaced the Tamiya Green with the Gunship green as I wanted something that I could shoot through the airbrush without any mixing/thinning. Unfortunately I couldn't find a good substitute for the Lorien Green so decided to stick with it.

Green Armour

Colour	Layer	Applied With	Brand
Dark Green	Basecoat	Airbrush	Vallejo Model Air
Gunship Green	Basecoat	Airbrush	Vallejo Model Air
Lorien Green	Directional Highlight	Airbrush	Citadel Layer Paint
Straken Green	Edge Highlight	Brush	Citadel Layer Paint
Biel Tan Green	Wash	Brush	Citadel Wash
Agrax Earthshade	Wash	Brush	Citadel Wash
Waywatcher Green	Glaze	Brush	Citadel Glaze
Dryad Bark	Battle Damage	Sponge	Citadel Base Paint

Green Armour - further dirt and battle damage will be added to the actual models.

Black Armour

Colour	Layer	Applied With	Brand
Dark Blue Grey	Basecoat	Airbrush	Vallejo Model Air
Dark Sea Green	Directional Highlight	Airbrush	Vallejo Model Air
Medium Sea Grey	Directional Highlight	Airbrush	Vallejo Model Air
Black	Shade	Airbrush	Vallejo Model Air
Medium Sea Grey	Edge Highlight	Brush	Vallejo Model Air

Gold Detail

Colour	Layer	Applied With	Brand
Rhinox Hide	Basecoat	Brush	Citadel Base Paint
Viking Gold	Basecoat	Brush	Scalecolor
Dwarven Gold	Basecoat	Brush	Scalecolor
Dwarven Gold / Speed Metal	Edge Highlight	Brush	Scalecolor
Agrax Earthshade	Wash	Brush	Citadel Wash

Silver/Metal Detail

Colour	Layer	Applied With	Brand
Black	Basecoat	Brush	Vallejo Model Air
Black Metal	Basecoat	Brush	Scalecolor
Heavy Metal	Basecoat	Brush	Scalecolor
Speed Metal	Edge Highlight	Brush	Scalecolor
Nuln Oil	Wash	Brush	Citadel Wash

Metal, Gold and Black(ish) areas

These core four make up the bulk of the model so I can get on with this whilst working out how to paint some of the other areas. They should also provide a good base for the Iron Hands models in the force, which should make the two legions tie together quite nicely.

Test Model - note the subtle difference in green as I played with the colours

Once I crack on with the models properly I'll try and pop up a stage by stage as originally intended.

Horus Heresy - Shattered Legion - Basing & Priming

Welcome to what will most definitely not be the most exciting post in what appears to have become a consistent series (by luck more than planning). Yep, basing and priming. Woo. Hoo.

Basing.

I reckon basing an army can be a bit of a chore at times. Resisting the urge to just add thin layer of sand to a base is something I often used to fight with. Luckily (for me) I now have a quick easy method that means I can get a bit of variety with just a few simple things.

Note: this method is probably exactly identical to many other peoples efforts. It isn't jaw droppingly exciting and it wont win me any modeling awards. But when faced with twenty plus models to paint it does the trick.

Tools for this particular mission are:

• PVA Glue
• Super Glue
• Green Stuff
• Cork (in this case a tub of off cuts)
• A tub of old GW basing sand (that used to come in bags I think, I just keep it in a tub)
• One Warhammer 40,000 Basing Kit (medium & small basing slate tubs)

Use the superglue to stick some of the cork to the base. Green Stuff is used to add a bit of variation to the level of the base.

PVA Glue is spread liberally onto the base. Some of the medium slate is dotted around the base.

Sprinkle on some small slate. 

Dip and shake. (That is dip the base in the tub of sand and then shake the tub until the base is covered.)

Leave to dry.

Seal the base with a mix of water and PVA glue. 

I add the final mix of water and PVA glue to ensure that the sand stays firmly attached to the base. (You'll need to add a drop of washing up liquid to the water to allow the surface tension of the PVA to break down and mix thoroughly).

Priming

Finally every model (so far) is given a few thin blasts of Vallejo Black Surface Primer. This was my first time using it, and so far colour me impressed. It's gone on nice and smooth through the airbrush. I've yet to add a zenithal spritz with some Vallejo white primer, but this will be the final stage before I break out the actual paints.

A shot of everything. Where you can make out almost nothing. Note the empty base. This is for the Praetor.

Primed Contemptor

Be sure to clean off ALL the mould release!

Primed Sergeants

Now I just need to figure out the right green to paint them!