Space Marines update

As several people on the Warhammer 40K forums didn't find my fluff believable, I had to go a few rounds with myself. And... *drumroll*
I've decided to totaly rethink my Space Marine fluff. As a result of this I will also need to change the apperance of my Marines.
The main design will be as is, but some changes will appear.
The main color will be Ultramarine Blue (as before)
Legs will have a darker color below the knee, Midninght Blue for the minis already finished, Necron Abyss for new minis.
One shouldergard will be Scull White with the chapter symbol painted on in black. For the first company there will be a thin black line between the shoulderguard and the white rim. The other Shoulderguard will be Ultramarine Blue with the company color on the rim.

I really liked the name The 2nd Ultras, and the name might stick as a nickname for the chapter, but there has to be a new official name. I have gone several rounds with myself to figure out if I should use an existing name from the Lexicanum as there are several non described chapters there, but if I choose this I make it possible for someone to write about my chapter and hence change my chapter history without my knowledge. So I have landed on finding my own name and chapter symbol. I have several symbols I would like to use, but my problem is applying it to the small shoulderguards and making it look similar from marine to marine. This means I will have to simplify quite a lot. Also, since my hands are not noted for being 100% steady on a normal day it will have to be simplified further.
I am currently testing out patterns on paper, and will try the best of these drawings on some spare shoulderguards from my bitzbox tonight.
After I have landed on a shoulder guard pattern, I will try to find a name that sounds good and matches the symbol.
I will try and post a picture of a Marine with the new symbol as soon as I have decided what it will be.

Finally, some progress...

The Imperial Guard soldiers are finally starting to leave the table and move over to the box where the miniatures awaiting basework stand. Half of the two plastic command squads were transferred over yesterday. The rest are missing one or two minor details or needs minor mistakes corrected before they join the box. Hopefully they all will join this afternoon. They will need washing along with the basework, but I have to do some tests to find the correct washes before I start. No ned to ruin miniatures with wrong washes...

Some Spacemarines are standing battle ready, just waiting to join the base-box. All that is missing is the final wash. I know what washes to use here, so it shouldn't take too long before they get off the table.
They have several units of battle brothers still to be finished, but hopefully most of them will be off the table during the spring. My assault squad will probably be on the table a little longer, as I am missing most of their arms. I hope I will get to arm them by using spare weapons from the boxed sets I have on my shelf, but time will show.

While assembling my Chaplain venerable dreadnought I managed to break a piece of the assault drill arm, so I ordered a spare now. Also added the upgradepack for the cadian veterans, so I can build sergeant Bastonne and his elite warriors. Will need another upgrade pack to make all 10 soldiers in the unit, but I will see how the upgrade pack is to work with before I buy more.

The base design for the Imperial Guard army is now decided. It will be nature bases. This means some will be grass, some rocks, some gravel. Some of the larger bases will get rivers or other larger details. Several of the bases will also get some sort of bushes or growth.
Since battles often rage for as long time, some bases will also have razor wire and other signs of a warzone on them.

I have also decided to make some of the heavy weapons teams hide behind trenches or earth walls, perhaps with added sandbags. This will depend how much of the base is left after the assembled models are placed.

One month since last update

What has happened since then?

I have a 1:35 diorama standing on my table, waiting for me to get some plaster so I can shape the base and attach the ruined building to the base. When that is done, I can paint and flock the plaster ground and paint the ruined building. Then I can add pieces of roof and some more details to the building before I place the German Flak-tank in front of the building, with the tracks a little buried in mud.

I might need the plaster for some Warhammer bases as well, as I am thinking of hightening the bases of my Chaos Knights. I have some extra cavalry bases, so I will tro to work both with plaster and cork and see what gives the best end result. I also have a spare horse to use for this. The plan is to make the horses stand out a little, as they are very great models. Two knights are waiting on my worktable for the basework, and three more are in small boxes just waiting for the first two to get completed.

The Space Marine chapter is under reconstruction. The physical troops are still being produced, and I am in the finishing state for several of my robed elite warriors. Also some "regular" Space Marines are in the works. My plan is to finish painting all the models currently at my worktable, and then make some vehicles, perhaps even the drop pod currently resting on my shelf.
The reconstruction is about their origin. I have gotten a lot of feedback that my fluff isn't holding up, so I will try to re-invent it. This might also mean that I have to come up with a new chapter mark instead of using the Ultramarines U for my logo. It will have to be something simple, as I still plan to paint it on by hand. Would be nice if it could have something to do with the Ultramarine logo, as I have some troops that have molded logos on their shoulderguards (like Scout sergeant Telion).

The Imperial Guard are comming along, I just found some extra equipment I wanted to add to my finished command squads, and this is currently in painting. It comes down to adding grenades, ammo pouches and pistols for some of the models.
I have also decided to re-paint the helmets of my 5 finished troopers to make the color scheme more "whole". I have painted their ear-patches dark angels green, and the rest of the helmet black, but I will re-paint it so the helmet is all black. This will also be done on the helmets of the command squads. I thought the green patches would add some detail to the troops, but in reality it just disturbs the final look.
The ogres are comming along nicely. I am currently having a little debate with myself on the issue of washing the skin or not. All other pieces will be washed, but I have to do a little testing to see if the skin looks better with or without a wash of ogryn flesh. Perhaps I will use some other wash instead, I plan to test on some other minis that have the same skin tone.
Sly and Dolph just need to get their mouths painted up, and perhaps their eyes. Three more Ogres, including the Bone 'ead, are half way done. The last ogre will probably stay in the blister for a little while longer as I want to build a Chimera and perhaps a Hellhound. I will probably make some more regular troops along side this work.

At the moment my hands are a little shaky, so the painting have been put on hold for a couple of days, but I hope and plan to be able to do some more work this weekend.

Status report

I have the pleassure of announcing that I actually managed to finish my Catachan command squad this weekend. Still I might add some extra bits and bobs on them, but as they stand now they are ready to fight!
I still have to do the basework, but that will be done when there are fewer miniatures on the table, so I actually have room to bring out all my basing equipment.

The Cadian command squad has come a big step towards finished too, but there are lots of details on the heads that needs to be done. Small stripes of visible layers that need a different color for each one, and the chinstraps on the helmets also needs to be painted.
I'll also need to paint the ropes for the banner, and glue that on to the banner itself. The heavy flamer guy also needs to get the backpack attached (Still some painting left on that) and the arms attached afterwords.
I have a small problem with arming the medic in this unit, as both hands are used for holding bandages and there are no folding stock lasrifles in this kit as it was in the Catachan equivalent. Still, I guess the medic will get a laspistol or a boltpistol in a holster on his hip. I have a holstered laspistol reday for him, but will look through my Space Marines bits to see if I can find a boltgun as that packs a bit more punch.
Since he is a medic I suspect he will have plenty to do in a fight without using a weapon anyway..

Some of my veteran Space Marines have also gotten some attention this weekend. There are a handful of veterans just waiting to get their shoulderguards and backpacks painted. Was thinking of glueing them on and painting them after, but I see that it will smudge the green robes for sure. That means I stick to my original plan and paint first and just do the final details after they are glued on.
My flamer convertion went a little sour unfortionately, as my arm meassuring was a little off. The flamer looks good, but he can only hold it with his firing arm, the supporting arm is a little behind the flamer, the fingers barely touching it. Still, he might be shifting his grip (or something like that). I guess I just have to make the rest of the miniature look good, then no one will notice that the arm is a little off.
I used one of the beaked heads for him, so he will stand out a little among his battle brothers.

Another weekly update

As usual things are running a little slow, there is so much other stuff going on that the miniature work doesn't get the right attention. But still, there are some progress. The Cadian command squad are fully assembled now, but there are some detils thast still needs painting. The Catachan command squad is ready to march into combat, as soon as their standard bearer gets his arm attached. I will do that as soon as I have used mithril silver on the scull in the middle of the standard. Both command squads might still get some extra stuff added, like canteens, knives, grenades, and such, but that can always be added at a later time. The metal command squad is getting painted a little bit at the time, but it doesn't get too high priority. My Ogres are also in the half-painted state at the moment. Sly (Sylvester) is missing paint on eyes and mouth as well as a wash on his pants and boots. I also need to use some wash on his chains. Dolph just need a few detailing touches such as eyes, mouth and the leather parts of his belts and carrying straps for the grenades. The other 3 ogryns have gotten their pants and tshirts painted. Also yesterday I got my last ogryn for the 6-orgryn squad in the mail, so he will be assembled this weekend. I got a package from Games Worshop HQ yesterday, and in that package was Gunnery Sergeant Harker (Gunny Highway in my army) who actually looked a bit smaller than I had expected from his description in the army books, there were 3 Kommisars that I really look forward to painting, and the first Chimera. I really hope my order of Cadian parts arrive soon from Ebay, as I then can assemble my Sergeant Bastonne too... Then he and Harker just need their elite squads to lead in to battle. 

The Space Marines are also getting along. The second batch of specialists will get their arms attached to their torsos on sunday if all goes according to plan. Then they just need shoulder guards and their backpacks to march into war. I will also see if some of them can get some extra equipment to make them look even more like special forces. For the Space Marines I already have a base scheme, so they will be based the next time I bring out the white glue.

Imperial Guard and Marine update

The weekend is over, and it's time for another update.
I have worked mainly on my Imperial Guard command squads, but I have managed to get a little progress on my Space Marines also.

The two plastic command squads are comming along nicely.
The Cadian torsos are all but finished, the only thing missing is one coat on the helmets and the medals on the commanders chest.
Then I have to fix the arms on some of the troopers, like the vox operator and the medic.
The vox operator will be holding a chart in his left hand, and I have to paint the chart before attatching the hand holding the chart to the arm.
The medic is holding a medipack unrolling a bandage so I need to have the arms perfectly alligned so the hands will fit correctly. I will paint the hands and bandage before trying to attach it all in one operation to the torso. It's always a lot of hassle doing it that way, but it is the only way I know to get it to fit perfectly.
The same arm problem will come with the heavy flamer, and here I will also need to find a way to attach the hose from the weapon to the connection in the prometheum tanks that will go on his back.
I'll also need to finish the platoon banner, and attatch the arm holding it to the banner bearer.
I also need to add some extra equipment from the command sprue, like canteens and grenades and such.

The Catachan command squad has come a little further, here it's only the arm with the Platoon banner that needs to be attached after the banner is finished. Apart from that the only things missing is backpacks (almost finished painting them) and some other extra equipment from the command sprue that I think will look nice on them. I tend to use all the backpacks (3 on the command sprue) and make sure that every man has a canteen, perhaps some ammo pouches, and some grenades where that can fit.

The elite Space Marines from the Dark Angels chapter that has come to help battle renegade space marines are getting closer to completion. Most of them uses both hands on their weapon, so I will have to have the torsos finished before I glue the arms in place. This also means that the weapons must be finished before this can be done. I will also need to paint the insides of the shoulder guards before they get attached, as the blue probably will spill over to their green capes if I don't.

I hope to get some progress on my miniatures this comming week, as I would love to clear the space on my worktable to start working on my Valkyrie. In order to do that I need to have at least 50% of the miniatures painted and off the table.

I still haven't figured out exactly how I'd like to base my Imperial Guard army, but I have decided to base both Cadians and Catachans (and others if they drop in) the same way. I plan to use some moss as growth, and also some barbed wire on some of the larger bases.

I have an idea to use some barbed wire and perhaps something from the bits box on some Space Marine bases. This will be a small attempt to make some unity in case I actually get an Apocalypse army together in the future, as well as giving me more chances to practice.

Guard update

I have been busy like a little beaver in my workshop in my spare time this christmas/New years vacation, and hopefully the next few weeks will make a god start for my Pledge for 2010.

At the moment I have 4 Ogryns of a unit of 6 ready to paint. One of them is about 80% painted. The remaining 2 Ogryns are on their way in the mail, and will be assembled and painted upon arrival. They are all from the current range of Ogryns, and will work as one unit.

I also have an old-school Ogryn. He is a lot smaller, but just as mean looking. Since he is so much smaller I have decided not to include him into the unit, and instead use him as a bodyguard for one of my commanders. The commander was suposed to be Lt. Fuzz (named after the blonde, childish Lieutennant from Beetle Bailey) but as I painted him I thought he looked a lot like the Norwegian entertainer Jahn Teigen, so he might be promoted and given a new name. I'll decide on that as the army progresses. There might be the need for more command squads in the future...

My last post gave name to some Ogryns, but that idea has been slightly altered... They will now be named after actors known for their muscles (or at least not that much for brains or "good" looks). 

My small bodyguard is Sly (since Sylvester Stallone is quite a lot shorter than other muscle-men). The Ogryn that is almost completed is named Dolph (after Dolph Lundgren) and I will name the others as I see who they look like. But I think my Bone 'ead might end up as a Chuck (as in Norris) or a Bruce (as in Willis) (so far Bruce is a hot candidate because of the hairstyle). There will pobably also be a Claude (or Jean) (Jean Claude Van Damme), Arnold (Schwartzenegger) and a Vin (Diesel), but we'll see when they are finished.

At the moment I am working with 3 command squads, where the command squad with the bodyguard attached will be the high command in the field and it will include some regimental advisors and a commisar or Lord commisar.

The other two command squads will be platoon command squads and they are the start of the real backbone of the army.
I am not too happy with the information of army organisation in the Imperial Codex, but until someone tells me I'm wrong I will use the platoon organization charts and max out one platoon at the time. The platoons will differ in miniatures, but I will try to build each platoon from the same range. At the moment there is one Cadian and one Catachan command squad.
The Cadian platoon will include a unit of elites led by Sergeant Bastonne. As there are no current model available of him, I will make one from my bits box and make him the way I believe he would look.
The Catachan platoon will have both Gunnery Sergeant Harker (or in my case Gunnery Sergeant Highway) and a Guardsman Marbo (probably also assembled from the bit box as he looks nothing special in the current miniature range). Harker will command an elite unit, Marbo sort of is his own elite unit...
I have decided to keep the company colors in a few palettes to make them all look like part of the same army, and they will have the same colors for boots, Combat BDU's, armour and weapons. Apart from that there will be some platoon or unit variation. Catachan units will have green combat vests, while Cadian units have light grey jackets or frocks.