Destroyer [Ad Mech] Teaser

 As a little teaser, introducing the first of two destroyers to roll out of the dusty warehouse. 

There is a lot of detailing that will still need to be added but he's coming along nicely. Despite the 'destroyer' variation having little to no armour in the fluff, I have designed these lot to have an armoured chassis as I think it looks better. The armour still needs work as it was only added last night in a rush - some ink and weathering will make it fit better into the decaying theme.

Dominus [Ad Mech] #3

Almost.... ALMOST.... 

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Dominus [Ad Mech] #2

In the low light of the badly lit living room with only the yellow stain of the desk lamp illuminating the model a few inches away from my face I continued. 

The Dominus is really coming together now. In fact, other than a bit of tidying up, a few extra washes here and there, perhaps some dirt to the bottom of the cloak, and the servo skull on his back, it's basically there. 

Below are a random selection of photos. Most are overly saturated as normal as they are being lit by a very dim desk lamp and the living room lights - all of which have the same output as a toothbrush. Quite a few are blurry as they were taken with my phone. And a few actually capture what I wanted to show. 

Oh, and all of them are portrait. Damn.

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The last two arms kept with the rest of the theme: the clean and rust free mechanism of the Dominus' skeleton compared to the rusty, ancient armour. 

I then began on the plasma cords building up bases of very dark blues spilling out from the coils before watering down a turquoise and letting that seep into the recesses. I allowed this to dry fully before applying anything else. 

    

Once dry, it was possible to dry-brush further levels of lighter blues working all the way to nearly white. 

 Finally I highlighted the very definitive sections such as the coils and immediate edges with white. 

Together he's really coming together. The once drab and disappointing grey/blue cloak now fits into the grand scheme perfectly giving quite the menacing look. 

Thanks for looking. 

Archie

Dominus [Ad Mech] #1

After a long hiatus I am back with a slight vengeance. The toy soldiers I was painting before were sapping my enthusiasm and the lack of any real detail or individuality pushed me away from the enjoyment of painting. 

I have begun idolising the Cult Mech armies as it combines my interests of small units as well as lots and lots of machinery and rust. My brother kindly sent me his Dominus character and sent me on my way to produce something of a decent model. 

After staring at the built model for nearly a week I decided to spray an undercoat. After staring at the undercoated model for a further week I began adding layer upon layer of watered down paints to the main body of the Dominus. 

Until today the rusty metal and dreary old cloak blended into each other to create a very bleak looking model. With a little more detailing and some highlighting (and way too much flash from my camera) it's starting to look a little better. It needs a little more detailing and a few coats of ink to really bring out the detail (especially around the head) but the basic idea is coming together. 

N.B. Only the main body has been painted so far; I'll get to the extras (arms, etc.) next. 

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A detailed look at the oxidised tanks on his back.

The face will eventually have a sickly yellowy-gold look to it - the real missing chunk here is the black ink to really hide the rest of the features under the dark cloak. The more I look at the red tubing the more I dislike it - it might just be the flash but I think it's a little too bright for the figure.

 The base too needs a few more coats of ink and a few shrubs to tie it together. I went for the typical boring "Mars" look. 

A proper look at the colouring of the cloak as well as the rusty armour on the back. N.B. The black holes on the side are the attachments for the arms. 

The "back pack" was still drying when I took these photos. A single layer of ink will make the detail on here pop. 

Thank you for looking. 

Archie.

The Praetorians - Razorback #2 [Space Marines]

The main body of the Razorback transport vehicle is almost completed and is the first unit in the army to show my true colours: Alpha Legion.

There are still a few details to do but I'm relatively happy with this so far. I just need to get the weapon sponsor and the reserve weapon sponsor painted now. 

The Praetorians - Space Marine Update

My marines deserved bigger bases; large marines look ridiculous crammed onto tiny bases. So with the sun out I took out the knife and began removing the old bases and glueing them onto some nice resin bases. 

I still need to get a few last details finished and get some transfers on their pauldroms.

The whole squad with flash.

The squad without flash.

The old vet' with the weird armour.

The plasma gunner.

A random marine. 

PLUS, for the first time, a little preview of my HQ choice and the squad's transport (both WIPs)

This guy is "converted" from the 'Dark Vengeance' boxset by just removing the Dark Angel iconography with a knife. I have a hatred of all the librarian models in the Space Marine range; so seeing this one was just perfect. 

The Praetorians - Tactical Squad #4 [Space Marines]

I've been unable to paint for quite a while due to trips all over the country, my increased workload and other meaningless excuses resulting in a nearly finished librarian model, a razorback in pieces (although some sections are completely painted it is nonetheless in pieces) and only 7 men of the first tac' squad finished.

Last night I decided I would dedicate a single hour to painting (this drastically became less time due to other chores) and I decided I would give this time to cleaning up those 7 men I had already completed before I continued with the rest. Something about them bothers me; I don't feel that the colour design works and I couldn't quite work out why.

After a certain amount of deliberation I came to the conclusion that the two 'bone' shoulder pads were not working as the model didn't look like it was a single design but two models amalgamated into one. I am therefore trialling phase two, which now looks like:

 

This translates quite nicely onto the model and after a quick repaint the squad looks like this:

Bare in mind that these were done rather swiftly last night in bad light and still need to be cleaned up and inked but overall I think the effect works quite nicely.

I'm not sure what I want to do with this chap. Yes, I know he is a mismatch of different armour types and has the wrong shoulder pad on his left shoulder (see below) but quite frankly I don't know enough of the fluff to really care - I personally really like him as a model and it seems a bit of a shame to repaint both of his shoulder pads.