40k Imperial Guard - part IX

I've had "fun", I have a chimera that I bought and painted at least 15 years ago. And for some reason I did not paint it as much as I drowned it in paint. So for the last weeks it has been in bath to get the paint removed. It worked… ok, not great but enough for the type of paintjob I do for my imperials.

I did a few additions to the tank, it had a stormbolter in the turret, and I changed that up for a stubber instead, and added some smoke launchers. Lastly I added a bedroll on the back of it, to cover up some damage it had suffered while in storage.

Other than that I painted it in exactly the same way as my Leman Russ.

And here's a few pictures for you all to enjoy.

I also have a Hellhound that have had the same color horror, this is in the works now.

Table building - part VI

I took a small break from painting my imperial army, and tried to make some more modules to my table I built some time ago.

This time I tried my hand at making a few bases of forest, this time I cut a bit into the edges of the modules, to make them a little more flat to the edges on the table and make them a bit more "rough".

What I did was paint the modules with a few of my bases for the trees on them when I did the textured paint, so that I would end up with something that indicates where the tree should stand. This went.. Ok I guess, not great as I had hoped that the texture would help in centering the bases a bit more on their place, not it is more of a visual indication of where they should be. 

Next time I might build the bases up a bit with filler and make small edges for the trees to centre on.

Other than that I painted the bases in exactly the same way as the rest of the table, so the work was minimal, but the drying times made progress slow. I could only make one layer each night.

The trees then, well I based them on 40mm wooden buttons that you can find in craft stores, I tried first with 30mm, but I thought they looked a bit to small.

And here's some pictures of the two bases I did with some trees on them.

Here you have them without any trees, and here you can see the circles that got left in the paint.

Finally I added a few Imperial troopers in them to give some sort of scale.

40k Imperial Guard - part VIII

With Christmas and new years over, I finally the other week had some time to go back to my miniatures and get some painting done. Just before the holidays I got my old 2ed Cadians stripped of paint and placed in the vicinity of the bases they would be standing on, and from there I pick it up again.

This time I primed them in the same colour that I used for my tank and Sentinels, just to speed things up a bit. I cant really say that it did, I still had to go over them with my base colour anyways as I did a very poor priming job, and more than a few spots was left with white or even bare metal.

What I had here was a squad with 3 plasma guns, the plasmas was not however original, they was green stuffed into existence from ordinary lasguns. A previous owner apparently wanted some plasmas so the lasguns had been cut up and green stuff was used to make them. I redid parts of them as I couldn't really use them as just lasguns, and plasmas are always nice to have. Besides that, it's not like I can find some new down at the local store. They turned out… ok I guess, it's not the prettiest of jobs, but its functional enough.

Well after a few days on my painting table they are finally done, and they look like this

This is the whole squad as it is to be seen now

The somewhat special guys

The cannon fodder, whose job it is to die first

The thought is to give them a chimera to ride along in, perhaps adding a heavy weapon to them as well so that they can stand around in the back and fire away. I have some weapon teams with bolters and autocannons, something should be usable.

40k Imperial Guard - part VII

I'm finally done with my sentinels, the holidays kind of impaired with any painting time, so I had to sneak in a few minutes here and there, and now they are complete.

I did dip them in Army painter dip, just as I did on my tank, and I'm quite pleased with the end result.

The highlights that I put on them before the dipping was more or less a waste of time, after the dip had dried, nothing could be seen of them. So next time, I'll do one of two things; 1 Do nothing of the sort or 2 Do them more visible.

Right now I think I'm going to do the first alternative, I need to go over them at least once after in any case, so it's most likely to be a waste of time.

I also got to do some damage on one of them, as it arrived with two left legs when I bought it on a "junk auction" many years ago, I got it cheap so I'm not sad, but it did require some modeling.

And that I did, but it was a long time ago I did it, and after the beating it had to go though then it wasn't much I could to now, so mostly I had to cover it up with paint.

Some pictures of the sentinels that's going to bring the fury to anyone that can stand still long enough for them to actually hit =)

40k Imperial Guard - part VI

After my tank I saw the old sentinels I have, they just stood there on my table just waiting to get some paint on them, so paint they shall have.

This time, instead of using my desert yellow straight on the minis, I first gave them a white undercoat to see it it would help.

And it did, very much so, instead of the 4+ layers I had to put on the tank I now only did one white and one yellow, and it was done, so that was a remarkable improvement and something I can recommend to everyone else thats about to try this.

Overall I have the same approach to these models as I had to my tank, prime, paint dip, but this time I'm trying to put a few small highlight before I get dipping. I'm not sure it will turn up all all, but at least I tried.

Now they are mostly ready for the dip, I may have to go over them once more to see if I've forgotten anything, but hopefully they will be done and ready for action in a few days.

This I think will be my last update before Christmas, we have a few visitors over the holidays and I think they will complain if I spend to much time at my painting desk.

So have a Merry Christmas, and may all your miniature cravings be meet =)

40k Imperial Guard - part V

Now I've got my LeMan Russ tank all ready to go, I've dipped it and then gone over parts of it again to make some small highlights, not much at all really, but i did make a difference in the overall impression.

I also added the white marking on the tower after the dip, mostly to keep the white just that, and not some brownish goo.

I do however have some thought about adding the same kind of marking that I have on my shoulder pads on the side of the turret, and perhaps also on each sponsorn. But for the moment I'll leave it be.

Painting wise, I didn't do much after the last session, I did some minor detailing on skulls and such, I also painted the weapons a bit more, but mostly I splashed dip all over it and let it dry for a day.

See for yourselves how it turned out in the end.

40k LeMan Russ WIP

I’ve started work on a LeMan Russ tank that I got hold on from a friend. It’s from the older line of tanks, so that a few things are different from the new ones, and the ability to vary the weapon load out is very limited.

I tried for the first time to magnetize the weapons; my main thought was to magnetize the side sponsorns. And I must say, it wasn’t as easy as I thought, mostly this could have something to do with me not having a proper drill in the right size, the one I had was very dull, so it was more an exercise in forcing it though with strength and the warmth generated by the drill than anything else, so the holes was far from perfect. But I got them in in the end.

The whole tank has been based with Flames of War, War Paint German Armour, I got this to get away from hand painting the whole thing. One thing I have to say about this though is that you need quite a lot of layers for it to cover. I think I had to place at least 4 layers on most parts to cover, and some places took 5-6. Next time I think I’ll try to get a white base coat on first so that the grey plastic doesn’t shine though quite as much.

So far I’ve only painted the first layers of metal on the main body, the front weapons will get some in the next go at the same time as some places get a second layer and then after some detailing I’m going to throw dip all over it and see how it looks after such a treatment.

All the parts for the tank, the bulldozer blade is magnitized as well

All the parts removed

Lascannon in the front

Heavy bolter front, made from a bolter form a heavy weapon team, not the greatest conversion, but it will work.