Greetings Brothers and Sisters!

Well I'm not much of a tinkerer or scratchbuilder but after hovering around this site for a few months the inevitable urge to do just that came over me.

While pondering the looks of my Ethereal leading my army and thumbing through my codex I was inspired by the honour guard entry. This set my mind racing as to how to set them apart from the our regular Shas'la. So i browsed through the forums here and set to thinking about the cloaks that have been posted on here.

Well I tried a couple of ones out of gs but wasn't very successful. Allowing my overactive imagination to keep working and wanting to continue trying to put them apart from their brothers (and being at my local GW store with a tournament of Warhammer Fantasy going on) I spotted High Elf archers as a perfect addition to them (well at least parts of them anyway)

So this is currently a WIP so any and all feedback welcome, still working out some flair for their ceremonial armour and between the horrors of running a telco store in the lead up to christmas trying to find time to keep the project going!

And would love to hear about any other similar projects with making an honour guard, and love the work of SirDuck in this post (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=12412)

the components

minor surgery



a suitable heroic pose



the ethereal they are sworn to protect

Wow! I really like that conversion, simple, and extremely effective. Also, from what I can see in that picture the ethereal looks really good. They will look great painted up. Good luck!

That is a very nice and effective conversion. IIRC GW did an article in White Dwarf shortly after the new Tau Empire codex was released about making honor guard. I want to say they used some Eldar bitz but I'll have to dig the issue out and read the article again. Thanks for the inspiration for when I get around to wanting to make an honor guard myself!

If you don't mind, I am so stealing this whenever I get around to adding an Ethereal to my small Cadre! I like the great coat sort of look for the legs, it works very well, and it wouldn't even be hard to paint up with the scheme I have for my Fire Warriors!

Very nice work, the illustrations/pictures help show what you did very nicely with a minimum number of photographs, making for a very effective tutorial. Keep up the good work, Shas'Saal!

Edit: Upon further inspection, I couldn't find an introductory post from you in the Member Profiles. You may wish to do so in order to allow the folks of ATT to get a chance to know you better. In addition, make sure you've read over the Membership Primers if you've not yet had a chance to do so. Again, keep up the good work!

M'yen shi, thanks for that, had thought i had already posted, situation now corrected!

thanks guys for the review so far, at the moment thinking of substituting the feathers from the High Elves kit for the Antennas in the Shas'la's helments to continue with the ceremonial apperance. will hopefully be posting more soon!

Oh and as much as i would love to take credit for the Ethereal paint work, that would have to go to my artist girlfriend. She is incredible with a paint brush and acrylics (i'm only just coming around to them after having used enamels for the last decade and a half!) however the honour guard will be my "graduation" if you will of ATT and her painting masterclasses!

I like that conversion a LOT! As the others said, fairly easy and a véry cool effect!

(You wouldn't mind if I'd try that idea sometime, would you? )

-Yabyahoo

Hey folks!

this is a display of some elements of my cadre as it comes together. Originally posted under my member profile I realised that this is a better place to post the subject matter.

In the fluff around my cadre they are a Rapid Response force that has been mobilized from a Temperate forest world/area and dispatched to a winter urban environment with little time to reequip except for some hastily applied winterization of the main force. The pathfinders and maybe elites (still thinking about this) are the only ones to get completely requiped for the new theatre of war. So here's a few pics of my Pathfinder's in winter urban camo. they're not completely finished yet but almost. Also included some pics of their DF and one of my SR.

Based on a black undercoat overlayed with a mix of Codex Grey and chaos black (90/10), with space wolves grey and white as the camoflage pattern and white highlights for gloves, boots etc.







This is the DF assigned to this squad of Pathfinders. I took the colour scheme from USAF F-15 Eagles and F-22 Raptors and adapted it to my Fish. The two greys give the urban feel and the waves break up it's outline, plus I figured that if it works today it should still work in the 41st Millenium!

The colours used are a Light Grey automobile spray paint with Humbrol Dark Gull Gray patterns.









This is one of my SR's showing off the forest splinter pattern. This I was influenced by WWII Luftwaffe Heinkel 111 and BF110 colour schemes

Colours used were Schwarzgrun and US Light Green (both Humbrol colours). The light Green was hand painted over the Schwarzgrun after masking off in the splinter pattern.
I had added the winter coat with watered down skull white but it didn't look right so wiped clean ready to redo (the advantage of acrylics over the enamels I'm used to using)







For larger photos head on over to PB to checkout the larger images
http://s647.photobucket.com/albums/uu19 ... %20scheme/
http://s647.photobucket.com/albums/uu19 ... /Vehicles/

As everything progresses will add more pics. As always any feedback welcome!

Cool looking Cadre. I especially like your splinter forest camo on the devilfish. And your use of modern camo schemes is also very cool to see on tau. Your painting style is very clean and crisp, a very good thing to have. One thing that would really help your models is highlighting; using a shade one step lighter than the basecoat and painting a thin line of it the edges of armour, cloth, etc. This makes the models stand out a lot more from the tabletop, and really pulls out the detail on them. If you want any more info on this, PM me and I can try to explain it in more depth (there are also a million good examples of it on this website!)
Good luck with the army!

Hey Novawing, I like the bit of fluff explaining the force's color scheme. The Devilfish looks great: clean lines, and the splotches seem to be in a good proportion to the size of the model. I also agree with Salio, the splinter pattern on the Skyray is also very well done. Those two colors look great together. The only thing to critique would be the Pathfinder. I think that for the sake of visibility, it's hard to differentiate between the armor and the clothing. Maybe having all fabric a solid color would help. Highlights might also fix that issue though. Good luck, and I hope to see this thread updated soon!

Looking good on that armor! I have to agree with the General that leaving that colored camo for the armor only would make it look nicer. In real life, I'm sure that would work perfectly, but on mini's it leaves them looking like grey blobs. Good job on the camo for the vehicles! I plan on doing a little myself, so this helps!

How are you going to base them? I think adding some snow to a forest looking base would look awesome. Keep up the good work!

thanks for the feedback everyone.

having only recently started using acrylics still practising the techniques of highlighting so salio will be taking you up on that offer!

@general and wolf : now that you've mentioned it i can see what you mean about fabric/armour and the dangers of making it seem blobby. I'm having to relearn a lot of my painting skills as my normal subjects in the past have always been aircraft or ships and not figures (in the past always seen figures and tanks as "targets" ) and as I've been scrolling through here there are a lot of techniques i'm dying to try out!

As far as basing goes I've done a couple of "tundra" type bases so far, will post some pics shortly. Otherwise Wolf I wanted to pick your brains about the bases for your ARC-16 pathfinders, they are really awesome looking for an urban theme base.

Novawing

Sure thing Nova, I'll post a picture here to give you an idea.




The bases were built entirely by me. I used some small gravel to make the dirt, while the big cement looking pieces are actually GaleForce 9 Concrete Rubble Mix. The other plastic pieces were some girders I had in my bitz box (I think from an IG kit).

I hope this helps some. Any particular questions?

_{Oh and you can post in my thread now, so feel free to do so.}

Thanks wolf! So going to be borrowing your ideas when I base my Pathfinder squad, with your permission of course! thinking of getting some styrofoam and breaking it up as larger chunks of rubble.

Ok so insomnia has struck again and so consequently I've had some more time to keep going with my WIP Ethereal Honour Guard.

Ok so needing to give them a suitably heroic pose, i've needed to change the hands of the FW's. With the help of a candle and a couple of pairs of tweezers (and some slightly singed finger tips) I produced some reasonable changes. Will be needing to rescore in the fingers though, as I can't have them appearing as anything less than in supreme physical condition!









Now a question for everyone, opinions on whether or not to add shoulder pads? I'm completely torn asunder by the decision, it looks great both ways!

Novawing

Ok so here's a little something promised earlier to you wolf, my Tundra bases.

First there's the Sniper Drone team on theirs.....





... then the large flying base....



It's quick and basic. a little brown strue material drybrushed white with a clump or two of grass to break it up a bit. Effectiveness and thoughts I look forward to hearing from everyone!

Novawing

I can tell you with confidence that when I'm stealing your method for my own Honor Guard (not if, when), I will definitely be including the shoulder pads on the left shoulder. I use them for Sept markings and a band of color for 'Ui level folks, and in addition I view the Honor Guard as having extra stuff on their armor, as opposed to having less armor than the regular Shas'la. That's just me though

I think a shoulder pad would really balance the models out nicely. I would suggest though that if you have access to enough XV-25 plain shoulder pads (see below for clarification) to use those, as they would add another separation from the normal Shas'la.

I'm loving those bases! They look really nice with the snow, however I think the grass may be a bit too bright. Are you using standard flock? If so, take a loot at this:
http://www.thewarstore.com/product26650.html

But still, these bases are gonna look awesome all together. How about putting some rocks and tree trunks/branches on some bases? Also, remember that there will probably be some areas where the snow has melted and you can see the muddy dirt underneath. Oh! You should do foot prints as well! That would look cool on a stealthier model; like he's stalking through the snow...

As for the Honor Guards, the General's suggestion is perfect. It gives them the look of a Firewarrior, but more elite. Personally, I feel like Honor Guards would have more high tech looking armor and gadgets. I wish these guys weren't so static, but they do look cool!

Cheers Guys.

I will be putting shoulder armour on. General, I definitely like the idea of using the Stealth Suit armour pads, but alas do not have any lying around. I've had a look around the net and couldn't find anyone selling them that didn't require purchase of the entire suit, any suggestions?

@Wolf, it's incredible but I've never really heard or seen much of the GF9 products but have been mesmerized by their range, definitely trying to find a local supplier, those concrete sections look great! ..... *glances over @ sprue box* I wonder.....

And with the foot prints in the snow.... *glances @ ready to base Stealth suits*... hmmm

Thanks for all the brilliant ideas guys! Now to invent a time machine to give me more hours in the day to invest in my little plastic spacemen!!

Well after perusing Google, I came across two sites that offer the shoulder pads separately: Bitz Box and The Combat Company. Unfortunately, they both have them labeled as "Out of Stock." I also have never purchased anything from them so I would not be able to tell you how the experience was.

I'm sure you'll figure out something suitably nice. Good luck!

Thanks general, eventually found some on Bitz Barn, orderinng tonight!

http://bitzbarn.com/oscommerce/catalog/ ... =22_42_152


Novawing