Took me a while but the last two XV8 teams are finished.





Finally, the battlesuits are united, except for the last broadside, still thinking of getting one more and form another unit.



Photos were taken by my brother whilst the crystal bitz are courtesy of my mum.
For bigger version of the images, visit here.

Looking good. I love how the team with the TL Flamer is red. I love how your army blends with the two tones of gems.

I absolutely love the black and purple XV8's. I've been wanting to try a mostly black colour scheme on my Shas'El but was worried it would look too plain. These definitely do not. It's a nice change from the standard "black underneath, single colour plating" scheme that everyone uses. Awesome work.

My goodness!
The color composition and balance of that group shot is AWESOME!
I really like the contrasting suit colors and the crystals.
The lighting is very striking as well.

That group shot paints a lush and interesting picture of the kind not often seen in the grimdarkfuture of 40k.

Well done!

- Adi.

Due to budget restraint and coming tournaments in the future, I've decided to stick this broadside with the other two.

Here's showing the Broadside that likes to show his "guns" again, but now painted with borderline skills.



Backview, less glowy than the others due to that it's standing(or posing) and do not require as much energy as needed compared to when moving or firing.


Group picture.


Updates starts to get infrequent now as my second semester has begun but to give you a heads up, I'll be either converting shields drones and attaching banners on them or I'll be painting the piranha which I just bought recently.

Thanks for the compliments and the recent change of my rank, the credits goes to the helpfulness of the forum and it's contributing members.

Amazing dioramas!

But why are the broadsides holding their railguns straight up like that?

@Zhege, I can make up some reasons for that.. but honestly? Just because it looks cool.

He's like- "YEEHAAW"(fires a ton of shots into the air)

Just another quick update on my progress, guys.

It's been two weeks now since my semester started but I still have some time to spare before tutorials start.

As mentioned before, my first piranha, took me a day or two worth of time to build and paint it throughout the weeks i guess.




Decided that this should be my firewarriors color scheme.





I bought another two more and will likely work on them soon, still needs loads of filing and smoothing though.

A small update, only managed to re-paint 6 firewarriors, following the new color scheme of the cadre. And I tell ya, I'd rather paint battlesuits all day.





Also, because I was working on this too.

With another 16 genestealers, this is my brother's army which I need to help him work on occasionally.


On side-news, I'll be attending a 750 pts local tourney, it will be my first time joining a tourney but not my first time in a battle. Hopefully, further contributing to the Greater Good.

How's everyone doing, been a month or more since my last update. Assignments are just so hard to be destroyed nowadays.

Anyways, not much has been done, I've only managed to miscellaneous stuff like base coating some models, did some repair and repainting, oh and converting six fire warriors into pseudo pathfinders, no pictures but I just attach target locks onto their pulse carbines, but looks like a huge laser sight for it. Though the most prominent thing I've done is working on the Flyrant. The thing keeps getting into 'accidents' when in my brother's care so I kept it in my room after reinforcing it with pinning and more green stuff.

Here's what it looks like now.



Having trouble deciding whether I should paint bleach bone or not, even though the colour scheme should follow the Leviathan Fleet but I want to incorporate glowing effects to it. Moreover, adding blood effects to my tyranids too. Surprisingly, painting it piques my interests more than assembling it cause I never painted bio lifeforms before.

PS: I lost the mini-tournament, low-point games just don't work for my army, would probably never join one from this organiser though because it was badly organised and there was no prizes to be won in the first place, not even a simple certificate of 'best general' of some sort, so I lost interest in playing on the second swizz round.

I love how crisp your lines are. Color choices are not something that I would have ever thought of. My roommate on the other hand thanks you profusely for the idea. That black on purple is perfect. What purple are you using? Keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing more for me to drool over.

Definitely second a mention on the Firewarriors, the scheme really emboldens their design. Turned out very smartly indeed

Look forward to progress on the be-winged gribbly

- Tael.

@ShaRroos, at the moment it's just Liche Purple with either black or white to change the level of brightness. I did use Warlock Purple(pink) before and with the other purple, creates some funky shading though.

@Tael, thanks for the compliments Fio'O, will find sometime to contribute to the Greater Good, but right now it's biomass for the Hive Mind for now.

Quick update: Just got my Lictor and quickly built it as soon as I have finished imagining. This model would however be count as the Deathleaper. Although I have some ideas already, would appreciate it if someone can give me some pointers on painting the camouflaging skin 'turning off' due to leaping into the air to strike.





Thanks again for the C&C.

By "turning off" I assume you mean changing back to normal skin color?

If that's what you meant, I would paint the flesh and carapace of the legs, tail, and back the color of the wall behind it. It's chest, head, and arms should be the normal color. The muscles (the tissue muscles, not the actual bulging muscles on his arms) should remain the same throughout the body (though that's a personal preference).
If you want, put a line of grey(or whatever color the wall is) passing through the eyes, and make the eyes a contrasting color (maybe red or yellow?).

I used masking fluid myself, painting the lictor the 'deactivated' color first, then masking an irregular border edge with the masking fluid, and painting select areas to match the terrain. Then gently remove the masking fluid, and you get a nice transition between the concealed parts and the natural parts of the lictor, just like this:

Here's the masking fluid I use: Windsor Newton Masking Fluid. It's also awesome for doing nicks and dings, or combining with tape when doing wing markings to make them appear slightly worn or chipped.

Alternatively, you could always do some blending to fade it into the color of the terrain, which would take a bit more time. In either event- best of luck to ya!

-PGR

@N'tol & PidGinRat, thanks for the advices, I'll keep them as references when I start on it, though I'm not sure I can get the fluid you suggested around my country, guess I'll have to do it the hard way, haha.

Now for a little WIP Update.

Guess what, the Flyrant was split in half at the torso, again. This was the final signal for me to pin the thing permanently, but only until I finished all my assignments (which I did, yay!). I used a 0.5-0.75 cm steel rod? drilled the xenos like I was feeling good about it. No problem ever since.

Additionally, just painted it, like 5 hours in total? And I'm only done with the wings generally and only the upper carapace, big models just takes a long time to paint without those fancy spray guns.

Wings were, for some reason, highlighted with bleach bone mixed with purple, turns out a pale purplish 'bone' colour. Still contemplating on what to do with the wing span though, at the moment it's just really dark purple.


The green tissue muscles were just thought out during painting, since my Tyranids were going to have glowing green blood, why not green glowing tissues?


So was this too, I didn't follow the traditional way of painting the carapace, tried this instead.


Let me know what you think, ATM I'm stll wondering what the the other body parts should be painted, I'm thinking pinkish purple tail and whip? The bonesword is probably going to be covered in red glow in lightning patterns, to show it sucks the life essence out of its victims? Still thinking about changing the patterns though.

Anyways, thanks for the C&C.

PS: Will be joining a painting competition with my Ethereal, probably going to touch up on it soon, they are only allowing 25 mm based models only.

Hello brethren, just a quick update on a local gaming convention I attended. Basically the event's filled with different types of games that one can join in competitions or just play till your hearts content; from wargaming, boardgames, video games, boardgames to even LARP.

Just a FYI, interestingly and in more relation to our hobby, the 40K tournament winner was a Black Templar player in a 3-rounds swiss system. He had beaten CSM, GK and SW in a row.

I've not joined the tournament but joined the painting competition instead, wanted to enter the Flyrant but it's gonna take too long for me to completely finish it so i chose my Ethereal instead. Sadly, didn't win though I believe I was a close 2nd? The entries weren't really impressive at the beginning though.

Here's my ethereal, changed some details here and there.


And here's the winning model for the competition, the trophy was a "Pewter Daemon" bust - about the size of a person's hand.


Anywho, Christmas Holidays is coming and I'm either going to use it to finish the Flyrant or study, so look out for an update near apocalyptic 2012, haha. I know it's early but Merry Christmas everyone and hope your presents are filled dead space marines, if you wish so.

Hello brethren, it's been two weeks now and the Flyrant proves to be my most challenged work (until I took a trygon in the knee).
Without further a due, here's some pictures.

I realized itt took quite a time to just paint it to table-top standard. The base as you can see is hardly touched except that I washed with one layer of Fortress Grey, will update it together when I finish my Lictor.



I gotta admit though, the dark parts of the body was just lazily washed with a mixture of purple and black, I didn't like the fact I have to all the body bleached bone; it won't contrast well with other parts of the body. For the actual bones, first time painting them, I just bleached bone-d the first layer and then a mixture of bleached bone and white skull for the second layer.




The blue.. wing spans? Were inspired by a masterfully painted daemon prince with wings. Note, I was inspired but hardly able to imitate the standard of the blending this particular person had achieved.



And finally we have the bonesword, this was inspired by looking at other people's magnificent tyrants, I first tried red but I am usually reminded with that it usually associates with power weapon glowing effects. Not my best glowing effect, green was particularly hard to freestyle with, there's definitely a higher range shades compared to the other colours I've used.



And so probably, this is my final model to be 'reasonably' completed for this year. C&C is as always appreciated.

Happy Holidays and soon, a happy new year, everyone.

Hello again, apparently I managed to find enough time to finish my Deathleaper (lictor). Been painting the Flyrant that I felt completing anything quickly is impossible. Special thanks to the some of the people here in the forum who gave advised on painting the 'camouflage effect', hopefully I've applied your knowledge somehow.

One thing you'll notice is I changed the bone colour, to be honest it was experimental at best but turned out as what I wanted. It was a mixture of ultramarine blue and bleached bone, gradually increasing the ratio for bleached bone and it gave out a milky blue colour. I finally add a bit of skull white to mixture for those highlights I guess.


The 'trail of light' behind the Deathleaper's eyes are suppose simulate the leaping motion. Though some would say it looks like I painted eye liner for it..


My first time doing 'camouflaging effect', the colours of the wall was also experimental because I was finding something that contrast the colours of the model, I mixed purple and blue together first then I put a ton of fortress grey in the mixture, creating this colour (I'm not sure what you call it). After painting the 'cloaked' parts of the Deathleaper, I did a bunch of things, not sure If they were necessary or not but I darken the mixture with black to.. darken the parts needed. Then I washed with devlan mud, I'm not sure that did anything but make it look dirtier, which I guess is a plus. Finally I highlighted with fortress grey.



Here's a couple more. The rest are quite self-explanatory since they are techniques I've used frequently.



"What do you mean I won't win against this animal? I have 2+ strength with this staff, Shas'la."


....and with that, thanks for viewing, I appreciate it a lot. For more pictures, visit my Flickr pool.