40k Project- Space Marines/ Grey Knights/ Sisters of Battle

It has been a while since I have painted an army, well over 12 months at least and having bought an airbrush recently I thought it was time to drag out some of my 40k miniatures I have been gathering over the last couple of years and get around to painting them. So far I have spent over a month just assembling the miniatures. It has taken so long mainly because I just hate mold lines and imperfections in miniatures and given that I am using an airbrush most of these show. I have decided this time around too to use Back to Basix premade resin bases to save time and just add small amounts of rumble. The main reason for this is that I just couldn’t be bothered (lazy I know) to build a lot of industrial style bases- it just would have taken way too long. The photographs I am putting up are some of the things I have been working on plus a lot more yet to come over the next couple of days. In the next week I am hoping to start painting and seeing how they come out. The colour scheme for the Grey Knights I am unsure of as yet and the Landraider is one possible combination. I was thinking about painting the space marines as Imperial Fists and the sisters (probably last) are a wait and see project yet. Now to the pictures…














Test miniatures…..







First Army Miniatures

Looking forward to this thread.

Will be keeping an eye on this one for sure!!

Massive fan mate, keep it up!

(Oh, and feel free to do a couple of "step by step" tutorials like you did with the chaos knights.. )

*Gets out pen and paper ready to take notes*

Mouse

wow....simply wow

Looking forward to it

Thanks for the words of encouragement guys.

What I have done on the Demon Army so far. I am still waiting on a couple of miniatures to arrive plus the bases for quite a few. I have not assembled all the Landraiders yet. I am starting to airbrush a few of the Crimson Fist this afternoon. Hopefully I will have the results up tomorrow.

Ok here goes…..I started work yesterday on base coating the marines. Now I am working on the Crimson fist colour scheme which is predominately dark blue.
The first time round didn’t work too well as I tried the vegemite masking technique. Just imagine using vegemite instead of masking fluid and a sponge. It does work really well especially on vehicles but I got impatient and stuffed it up on the terminators so I had to respray them and I decided not to go with chips yet. To give you some idea it took about 3 hours to spray the unit of 8 terminators, 10 space marines and the dreadnought. ThenI applied a wash of oils using turps- a mixture of black/ blue and brown to give them more depth and an aged appearance. I will post up some closes up once I start working on the detail. To top things off my Landraider Redeemer and bases for the rest of my Demonhunter army arrived yesterday. Like, I didn’t have enough to do already.

Nice work, and vegemite technique very interesting. Do you just wash it off after the paint is dry?
I got an Infinity 2 in 1 a couple of weeks back to try some new techniques and help speed my painting up. Spending most my spare time sculpting atm, haven't given it a run yet.

Its washes off really easily- Warm water and a tooth brush. I think I am getting a drop pod for Christmas and it is a perfect item to do some more test like this on.

Great, I'll give that a try, must work well on single miniatures to get the shadows happening.

Hi Arithon,

Looking forward to seeing more. Im fairly new to the airbrushing scene and have only done basecoating and rhino sized tanks. Im interested in finding out more about airbrushing minis.

What pressure do you use?
Paints.
Tips on changing paint colours or applying highlights with an airbrush.
Mixing Medium
Needle size etc..
And what is the vegemite technique? Im assuming you smear it onto areas you do not want to airbrush.

I hope I havent asked too many questions...:

Regards,

Stuart.

Hi Stuart,

No you havent at all and I encourage anybody to ask questions. I am still learning myself about how to use them properly at the moment.

Ok here goes….

Firstly air pressure is normally set at about 17-20 psi and to highlight- uses the same principle as painting. I start with a black undercoat, then in this case I have used midnight blue as a base coat, then enchanted blue and enchanted blue with white and finally a coat of white before washing with an oil. The mixing medium I am using is Mr Hobby airbrush thinner but I have heard windex can also be used, but I haven’t tried this yet. In all cases I actually mix the paint in the cup using an old brush. Then hold the miniature in one hand and the air brush with the other so I can see and control where the paint is being sprayed. With airbrushing the same rules apply as when trying to do painting- zenthial lighting as in top down shading. I use the airbrush to achieve this with lighter coats being applied form the top of the miniature or to parts that would catch the light. I use thin coats- about the consistency of milk and apply a few layers. However with an airbrush it is incredibly fast. In that something like a marine can be base coated to a high standard within minutes not hours. The airbrush is actually quite cheap- cant remember the needle size (but it is small). Currently I am using a

Sparmax- DH103 which retails for $90-120
Sparmax Compressor 500- Cost around $400

When buying a compressor things it should have are-

Regulator
Water trap
And reserve cylinder

With the vegemite technique uses a sponge to apply it to the corners/ areas that want chipped effects and you simply apply it and then paint over with the airbrush and remove once dry. It does work well but I was rushing a bit yesterday and didn’t do it properly.


Cheers,

Jamie

There is some really stunning stuff in here already so I'll certainly be checking back for the results!

May I ask a n00b question. With this basecoating with the airbrush and applying the shading, are you spraying from the top of the miniature to avoid spraying the 'shadowed' recesses or is the airbrush that fine in its spray pattern that you are highlighting as you might with a brush.

The mini's really do look superb!

@ Griddon

Basically yes- only slight angles but from the top. There is enough control to even highlight large sections say on a dreadnought. I havent mastered the control necessary to do individual miniature sections but I am sure there are other people who can.

Close ups. I have also started to paint the terminators first and should have them finished be the end of the tomorrow. The dreadnought I reckon is next.

Great painting. I'm not sure what else to say.

Finished all 8- they might need a bit more of a wash in some places but I will interested in seeing what you think? Overall it took 2 days to paint including bases.

These are awesome. I'm loving the effect the airbrush is giving.

Couple of thoughts:

It's not dark blue. if anything it looks light. and a tad chalky. I thin glaze of blue may cheer them up a bit?

And the red is kinda overpowering. though this is quite likely your camera, reds can be an arse to photograph.

The assassins are perfect.

Hmmm, the dreadnought has the best zenithal shading whereas the terminators seem to be lacking in contrast. And the red does look very overpowering.

The terminators just seem to be lacking in something...

I agree I think dulling down the red might help

cheers waaagh

Fixed the red and have done a dreadnought…





And more pictures here for the dreadnought:

http://coolminiornot.com/240709

Red looks way better now.

Need to do something with their shields though (a stripe, a decal, a hello kitty, whatever).

The dreadnaught looks great and the terminators are getting there. I agree about the shields needing some heraldry or something

The marines and dreaddy are looking awesome! keep up the stella work.

I cant really change the terminators- I have sold them already. These are still just test miniatures before I start to paint my Demonhunters force, which is nearly fully assembled. I intend to do 10 Tactical marines yet. Just getting a feel for what works best.

Teach us Obi Wan...

Looking all 36 flavours of awesome!!!

Mouse

Hey!

First of all, I'm absolutely loving the airbrushed look! This thread has inspired me to get up into the ceiling and get down my dads old Badger airbrush and have a play around. I'm still getting the feel of it, but I have some questions.
I hope there aren't too many .


1: What colours did you use for the model on the left? I'm making a tyranid force and the bone-looking colours could make excellent skin- I hope you don't mind me appropriating the technique?


2: When you spray on the highlights, do you keep your brush in the one place, or do you move it above the mini in an arc?

3: You mentioned that you "applied a wash of oils using turps- a mixture of black/ blue and brown to give them more depth and an aged appearance". I guess you mean oil points, and if so, why do you use oils instead of acrylics?

Thanks very much in advance!

is there any chance of you doing commissions? I have a couple of armored units that need painting.

Luke

Dreadnought is fantastic. This is top tier army painting.

you wernt joking this morning were u mate, that is really really really!!! good work ill prob never be as good.

@Manmander

Sorry I havent checked this thread in a while...been busy. Now to answer yuor questions:

1) and 2) I started with a black undercoat. Then sprayed all over with VMC balck/brown but scorched brown with a lttile black in it should do the same thing. The bleached bone spray but keep it main directed from the top down. The finally bleach bone with a little skull white once again keeping the spray from the top down. You only need to spray the top of the miniature at this stage. When I say top down- in an arc about 30 degree movement all around the top.

3) Yes I meant oil paints- does stink alot but good for a thorough thin wash on the entire miniature.

@ Knight_of_Sanguinius

Thanks that means alot coming from someone so talented.

@ luke james

Sorry no- I cant advertise and I am currently not doing Commission Work. If I do I will subscribe here and let people know. Thanks for the offer though.

@ soap Mctavish

lol....I wasnt kidding. I hope you find this helpful.


I have finished the space marine tactical squad I just have to fix the bases a bit before taking some decent photographs. I am also building some terrain on 3mm mdf and using slate/ sand and kneadit putty to help put it together. I am going to use this as a test for more airbrushing and weathering on the wreck.

still stand by what i said in the pm mate.. lool.

I finished basing the marines last night and now have done some close ups. I have just undercoated the terrain and I hope to start airbrushing them in the next couple of days.

Great marines. I like the battle damage, sometimes less is more and what you've got going is all working well together. Do your plan on putting chapter marking on them, freehand or decals?

Love the loader for the missile launcher guy - looks excellent. Nice work on them - although are you planning to scorch the nozzle of the flamer at all? Looks a bit showroom-like next to the weathered squad.

These are looking fantastic! Is that weathering pigment that you have used on the feet?

Yes it is just mig pigment at the feet. I should fix up the flamer-thanks for pointing that out, I just forgot to do it. These are just test miniatures- not sure if I will do anything with them yet. Next off I plan on actually working on my colour scheme for my demon hunters army. I might just do a test miniature first and see what people think.

Thanks very much for answering my questions! And keep up the excellent work, not that you're likely to stop, but the marines are looking great.

Terrain pieces- still wip. Only started these on Sunday but I am happy with the results so far.

Not the best photographs but at least the terrain is finished. I have been working on building a Valkyrie at the same time as well- which takes awhile to do.

Looks great dude! really looks like it crashes ages ago, reminds me a bit of Firefly actually.

I agree, that looks fantastic!

love the weathering. rust is especially nice. good touch.

Latest...took me most the week to put this together. I have used rem to keep the back hatch open and I intend to paint the inside of this one. The actual front of the miniature has not yet been attached and will be done once I have painted the inside section.

The mig pigments really do a great job I have used pastel b4, but every time I see mig products used makes me want to get some.

Cant wait to see what you do with the Valkyrie.

I started working on the interior of the valkyrie last night as well as about one third of my Greyknights. I have painted one up as a test miniature. What do people think of the colour scheme?





I still need to do the metallics and maybe some washes on the armour and rehighlight -white on top sections?

i was wondering how much time one of those terminators took to get to the 'finished' stage?

This diary could prove very useful to my guard forces.

Luke

Those terminators ( all 8) took me 2 days to paint. So about 3-4 hours each. Not long really.

WOW you are good with that air brush, i like the marine over the gray knights. But dam good work even those crap crashed GW plain look dam dam good.

The paint scheme for the Knights is good. I'm not much of a painter but what you have looks to blend nicely together. Keep up the great work.