Broken Paintbrush

I was finally able to finish the last few details of the squad, including the base and matte varnish. I’m still playing around with some various backgrounds and picked up a pack of card stock of a couple shades of tan and gray. For this shot I used the dark gray card as the tans turned out too yellow and light. The only thing I don’t like about using the card stock is the lines, oh well. On to the individual shots:

With these guys finished I think I am going to take a break from the Mentor Legion for now, the thought of painting up a battle force + ABR of these guys just tires me out! I have some Iron Warriors to finish up any way that have been patently awaiting the brush… stay tuned for those terminators and rhinos that have been sitting on my desk!

Thoughts, ideas or criticism? Let me know!

Well I wasn’t able to finish the squad over the weekend, but I made some good progress. Until now I had been debating on how the Mentor Legion would show company/squad markings. They are a codex chapter but having different colored shoulder bands wouldn’t fit their look. I couldn’t find any thing scouring the interwebs so I decided on knee pads for the company color and Gothic numbering for the squad. This squad has been placed in the 2nd Company, 3rd Tactical Squad.

This guy was my first attempt at free handing the tactical arrow and it turned out terrible! So I opted for the half-cheating approach. I used the transfers from the kit for the inner white arrow and repainted the red edging and then repainted the white inner area. I used the transfers on the other tactical arrows as well with an over-paint to cover the decal.

I tried using the same technique for the Gothic number 3 but the decal was way too big for the curved surface and kept bulging. After trying to cut it apart and restitch it I gave up and decided to try the free hand approach. Overall I think they turned out pretty good.

I also did some work on the two missing guns which I painted separately and are now resting in their rightful holders. I am now down to finishing the metal areas, a little armor damage and the bases.  Stay tuned!

Well I was finally able to get all the white done on this small squad. I think the last two guys got a little rushed in my anxiousness to get them done, but overall they seem to match up pretty well. Now with the white done there is little left to do other than details: the aquilas, purity seals, squad markings, and the bases. Hopefully I can get these done over the weekend.

I also tried a couple different background for the photo shoot as white models on a white background don’t work all that well. For both of these shots I grabbed a nearby t-shirt and crumpled it up as the backdrop.

Tan backdrop:

Dark brown backdrop:

What do you guys think about the different backgrounds? I am also going to try out a dark, textured paper somewhat like what Massive Voodoo uses.

So the white armor is takes a while to do… After painting this guy’s base coat I realized that to take full advantage of the paint mix I needed to complete him before moving on. I think his armor looks smoother than the Sargent but doesn’t show the same depth and shading. win some, lose some yeah?

Anyway the steps I used to paint the white. I started with mixing 1:1:1:5 mix of graveyard earth, codex grey, skull white and water. I used this to pretty much cover everything except the recesses in the armor or where it met other colors. I then added more and more white and water and added about 6 or so layers focusing more on the ridges and ‘tops’ of the white areas. I finally used pure skull white to highlight the hard, upper edges.

Here’s a shot of my messy desk area. In the background you can see some Iron Warrior Terminators awaiting finishing touches on their bases. Center back is my really basic ‘light box’ to take WIP shots – yes it really is copy paper leaning against the wall You can see the missile launcher guy is up next as he stands on my improve ‘handle’ made from an old paint pot and sticky tac.

Any comments on how the white looks would be appreciated, I always like learning new things.

Although I was hoping to get some feedback on my first cut at my Mentor Legion Squad before continuing I decided to press on and finish the squad.

As I picked up my paintbrush I realized that this was the first time I had done any painting for nearly 3 months! And man could I tell, my hands were somewhat shaky, the paint wasn’t smooth and my hands kept cramping up. After a few sessions I was able to get some good progress on the squad and regain some of the painting mojo.

I almost didn’t post this next picture as it looks like a elementary school kid slapped the some paint on so that they could be played in a store… ugh. But oh well, here is some WIP shots of the squad:

Here I blocked out the different colors to both get an idea of what goes where, as well as cover up all the white primer in all the little nooks without worrying about getting paint where it doesn’t belong. Colors are pretty simple: Orkhide Green, Mechrite Red, Graveyard Earth, Tausept Ochre.

Next up I painted the highlights on the green. I do this next as I find it is easy to touch up darker colors rather than the white armor. The green was layered from Orkhide Green, to Goblin Green,  to Scorpion Green, and finally Skull White on the extremes. The areas were then washed with Thraka Green wash to tie the shades together.

The red areas were next. Starting with the Mechrite base I layered Blood Red, to Blazing Orange, then  Golden Yellow. A small amount of black wash was used to darken the recesses.

Next up will probably be the white armor… this part will take a while…

A long while back my FLGS was doing a challenge to paint a unit from every Space Marine Chapter on the poster that GW put out a few years back. I looked into my bitz boxes and realized I had quite a few loyal space marine pieces that I needed to put a use to and decided to jump in. I wanted to chose a chapter that would be fun to paint, but require me to stretch my painting skills. With this requirements, the Mentor Legion caught my eye as they are a not-often played army (at least from what I’ve seen) and had white armor (which I heard was difficult to paint well).

To further challenge my self I decided that I would minimize my use of washes on this army and work on blending and layering. I decided to start with the sergeant the squad as the test model since it is a bit more ok if he stands out slightly from the rest of the squad.

I think the white armor came off a bit too brown and streaky up close, but comes off well as a table top model. I’m also not so sure about the yellow power sword, the idea was to tie it in with the chest eagle and eyes but it doesn’t look as striking like a power sword should. At this point I just need to finish his base and add some company/squad markings and he is done.

Here is the rest of the small, test squad I had started, but with Real Life (I think one of you bloggers has that copyrighted, hope you don’t sue me ) I had to put them aside for a time. They are now sitting on my painting table awaiting my motivation.

Please give me any feedback (negative or positive) on the sarge so I can continue to improve my style and technique with the other 4 in this squad.