The More the Merrier

The second Corsair has been ready for a while, but only now I had time to photograph it for the blog. The rich red colour I used in the first Chaos Astartes was quite peculiar to copy for the second one. I used several different techniques to achieve it but didn't keep any record of the methods used. Other than that, it was fun piece to paint and the end result sits pretty well alongside the previous Marine.

The skull on the tilting shield is a transfer, as are the numbers on the Marine's shoulder ornament. It has been a while since I used one of those, but this time I wanted to try and see how would they sit in my current style. The skull needed some dimming down as it was way too bright. I'm not so sure if I like the shield the way it looks like, but for now it may stay the way it is. I think I'll stick with the freehand painting though.

Red Corsair #2 – WIP II

I started painting the second Red Corsair a few days ago. Not much has happened, but I still thought to share some teaser WIP shots with you.

It is funny how you go blind to certain details when you keep working on with a single project for longer period of time. In this case I notice couple of mistakes and oddities just after I had primed the miniature, things that I need to fix before continuing with the painting process. For instance, the waist trim looks very odd because of the lonely spike sticking out of it. I need to rethink it and make some sort of shield in place of the spike, maybe sculpt a small skull motif in there. Also, some of the spikes on this guys shoulder armours look like they've just been glued in the place – yeah, that's true but I wanted the spikes to look like if they were growing out of the armour.

Red Corsair #2 – WIP I

Four months. Four bloody months since the last time I wrote a posted in here. That is a damn long time and I must apologize for it...

To wrap things up I need to start from this summer. I had just started my well deserved long summer leave – five weeks to be exact – and because it felt that I had lots of time in my hands, we decided to make some small renovations in our apartment. That "small" project prolonged in to three week task and took a lot of juice off me. It was a creative task all right, but physically very stressful, so I decided to take some time off from the hobby and other not so urgent stuff and just take it easy.

Few months later I felt that it was a time to get back in action. But it took me some time to reignite the engine.

When painting the Plague Marines before the off-time I noticed how hard it was to give them my fullest attention. It was fun project to do, tried some new techniques while doing it too. But something was off... I pushed that project forward and finished the whole squad, but I felt kind of left without the much needed umph afterwards! And I knew why – They weren't in true-/art-scale. I believe it's the curse of the true-scaleism; Once you've built and painted one of those, there's really no turning back, is there?

There was a spark, ignition and fire. I decided to continue one of my "side tracks", The Red Corsairs. So I dug in to my bits box and started putting pieces together, finally making a bits sketch based loosely on one of my drawings. Below is the first part of the story of the project presented in the set of WIP shot...

Third or so bits sketch of the renegade Astartes, which I chose for my project.

Adding some weight and bulkiness.

Glueing some studs. For studs I used hair cut off from washing-up brush.

I decided to change the weapon arm to less "aggressive" so that he'd match up better with the pose of the Champion of the Fleet.

Brothers Astartes Malus

Primed and ready to paint!

Lords of Decay

Here's the first part of Lords of Decay slice for the Chaos Space Marine project that I'm currently working on. I've finished the first squad of Plague Marines and their dedicated transport. Quick and nasty painting style, which is the way I'm starting to come to terms with.

The summoned Plaguebearers were originally a part of my Fantasy Battle Chaos Army (or start of such), but since I'm done with building that particular force, I decided to change their bases to the round ones and include them in this project.

Next I'm planning to add a very small group of Chosen Chaos Space Marines...

Death Guard March

I've gone back to my old Chaos Space Marine project. My first intention was to build a solid 1000 to 1500 points playable army of Emperor's Children, but after finishing the fifth book of the Horus Heresy series, I wanted to mix things a little and decided to expand the army to Death Guard.

I had bought the set of Plague Marines way back, but never got the spark to start with them... until recently. Our little circle of like-minded talented hobbyists put together a small playful painting challenge, where each would have to paint a miniature of their choice within three hours. So I chose to paint one of the Plague Marines, as I had a very clear vision of the colour scheme I would use for it; dirty and weathered white armour, rusty trims and patinated copper, sickly gray skin and bright orange as contrast.

The outcome of the challenge was very promising, considering the time used for one single figure. It was nice change to my routines too, as I've used to spend hours and hours with my previous miniatures. Full of hobby spirit I decided that I would put my Chaos Space Marine project back on track and paint the rest of the seven Plague Marines with the same technique and colour scheme.

Now here's the first four members of the Death Guard, marching on the ruins of some long forgotten battleground, searching for something to stab with their infectious blades...

Death Guard, 4/7

Space Pirate Astartes - Red Corsairs

"Burn. Burn the ship. Burn the pathetic weaklings with it, alive."

So this is it, my next "grande" project - a true scale Adeptus Astartes. Actually I'm talking about making a bunch of them, three renegade Red Corsair Astartes to be exact. With power hooks, eye-patches and fiery red armours... Yarrr!

The idea of making a true scale Space Marine has been lurking in my mind ever since I finished the first Horus Heresy book. It was Migsula's fantastic Alpha Legionnaire that gave me the spark to start this project. I'm quite sure that my Astartes will have a lot in common with them, what comes to the shape, size and the overall feeling of them (or at least that's where I am aiming to), after all, they have inspired me a lot ever since I first ran into them.

So once again I grabbed a pencil and started sketching...

Champion of the Fleet (black ink pencil)

My main goal was to try to render the hulking embodiment of an Astartes the way I see it. The armour is very bulky, worn and scattered with trophies and ancient liturgies. The head is like a small pin, a pinnacle that over-emphasizes the magnificent frame of the Astartes. The massive fur coat rims the figure, making the warrior look like a barbarian of the far future, something that I've always thought that the Astartes fundamentally were.

With this visual reference I've started gathering the bits that I would be needing to get as close to this vision as possible. I hope that I'll soon have something relevant to show to you, as I'm more than eager to put the pieces together!