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!

Marines of Mayhem - The Red Corsairs Illustrations

I managed to finish the rest of the illustrations for my Red Corsairs project. Here they be...

Renegade Adeptus Astartes Red Corsairs II
(black ink pencil and white acrylic on white cardboard)

This chap is pretty generic Chaos Space Marine with all the spikes, trophy skulls and grotesque helmet. But as always, I wanted to add at least one reference to pirates... "X" marks the spot, eh? My favourite part is the Xenos skull that has been rammed thru the barrel. It gives a nice barbaric touch to the customized boltgun and makes it just a little bit more fearsome weapon of destruction.

Once again my main goal was to draw space pirate marines with hulking armours, whose god-like personalities would fill the whole paper, literally. I actually had to extend my paper with tape and another piece of paper to be able to fit these monsters on my drawing area. I know, bad conceptualization and even worse planning.

Renegade Adeptus Astartes Red Corsairs III
(black ink pencil and white acrylic on white cardboard)

Here's the third and final brutal renegade illustrated for my Red Corsairs project. The pose is once again very stiff and proud – I might try out something a bit more mobile next time, maybe even an action packed battle scene. The off-chopped heads, wide chaotic blade, ancient pistol and long, dark hair give a nice regressive, barbaric impact. Some of you might recognize where the sword has been taken from ;)

Conan the Barbarian flick from the 80's worked as my main inspiration for the all three Red Corsair concepts. I tried to saturate the Corsairs with the same fearsome character that Thulsa Doom and Co. had in the movie. Just check out the scene where James Earl Jones gets off from his ride, takes off his helmet to beheads Conan's mother, and you know what I mean.

These drawings will again work as my guidance and inspiration through the conversion and painting sessions that I will be having somewhere in the future. Like with their predecessor's case, Ragal Gair, I won't be tied to follow the exact path but have pretty much free will to take ideas from here to there.

Red Corsair - Ragal Gair, Champion of the Fleet

Ragal Gair, Champion of The Fleet

So there he finally stands, the Red Corsair Ragal Gair, Champion of the Fleet, the harvester of skulls. The hulking armour, seasoned and stained by the time and blood, gleams in deep red. Moist, freshly picked trophy skulls, pierced by the thorns of the shoulder guard, make a macabre altar of victory, drawing fat hungry flies to feast. The grotesquelly shaped power hook, in place of an arm lost long ago in a fierce boarding fight, whispers quiet hissing sounds when it moves in the will of its master...

Ragal Gair's painting process took me almost a week to finish, eating almost all of my freetime. I have to thank my wife for her understanding as all I could think was to finish this up before the end of the week. Sometimes I get pretty deep when I start something...

Ok, some thoughts about the final stages. I decided to change the direction of the head at the last minute. The final posture is now somewhat more alert and a bit more balanced.

Now some of you might notice that the familiar black and red colour scheme of the Red Corsairs is in Gair's case much more dominated by the vivid red. There's still some hints of black here and there, in bolt pistol and in tilting shield to name the few.

My main inspiration for the colour scheme came from this John Blanche's Red Corsair painting...

Red Corsair by venerable John Blanche

I tried to capture the vivid reds of the painting for my Corsair. I primed the whole armour with dark red and brown, adding a layer of red,  highlighting with orange and yellows and finally gaving the whole thing a nice shiny layer of orange ink. I almost ruined the whole process by adding a layer of mat varnish on top of the paintjob, as the varnish ate all the gleam and vibrant shades of the armour that made it so vibrant in the first place. Fortunately, I was able to fix my error by gently repeating the process, excluding the mat varnish, of course ;)

Here's some more angles of the finished Red Corsair...

I decided to keep the backpack as it was, as modificating it afterwards felt quite laborious.

Vivid red was pretty unforgivingly hard to capture in to photos, like many before me have witnessed. That dark backdrop didn't help it a bit. In the end, I was able to adjust my camera to get decent shots that where the colour balance was acceptable for the post-processing.
 
Finally some close-ups...

So 1/3 finished and two more to go. I've already started planning the next one but it'll take some time before I have anything substantial to show you. Hmm, maybe it is time to get back to Punk Moth project...

- Kari

Red Corsair - Shaggy Fur Cloak | WIP IV

I managed to finish sculping the fur cloak for the Corsair. It became sophisticatedly massive, just the way I planned it to be...

I decided to leave the bottom of the cloak without fur just to make the thing a little bit less heavy. Thereby I was able to practice sculpting some cloth folding... Not sure if the outcome is natural or not, but guess the result does the trick, don't you think?

Little details like bones and skull hanging from the fur on the back break the dominant fur texture a bit, lighten the mood so to speak. It is always a good idea to add something catchy on the back of your mini, just so that the rear view wouldn't be so, well, dull.

Size comparison - Astartes vs. standard Imperial citizen

I did try to put a fur loin cloth for the Corsair, but I thought it was maybe a little bit too much and decided to let it go at this time. I'll definately consider of using it in my next Corsair project, to tie this mini and that together (furrr!).

Any final hints or tips before heading to priming?

Red Corsair - Studded | WIP III

Phew, just finished with the Corsair's armour trims and studds. I decided to keep the trims very simple and less ornamental - like if I had the skills to make them that ornamental at this point. I'll leave it to the painting state to really bring those flat areas alive. Got to say, gluing those tiny studds (cut off from dish brush hair) wasn't really the best bit of this project...

And here's a close-up from the trophy skulls pierced by the shoulder pads spikes (Sorry Molotov, majority spoke and I decided to keep the skulls). Like JB suggested, I will paint something catchy on the other shoulder's shield to balance the upper body. Also, the massive fur mantle that I've planned to "frame" the Astartes will make the trophy skulls pad look lot smaller.

And finally a peek to behind. This area will probably be mostly covered by a massive fur mantle that'll trail behind the Corsair.

If everything goes well, the Corsair is well on its way to be finished before the end of the month. I was thinking of expanding this project a bit, giving the Renegade Astartes a small companion, a helmet carrier on a seperate base, to make the massive character look even bigger.

Red Corsair - Trophy Skulls | WIP II

Onwards with the Corsair...

The posture is now a bit more vigorous than it was in the blue tac stage. I widened the chest area a bit more from the sides and the back area and added a round of thin piece of plasticard around the Marine's waist to give the upper torso more mass. Little things like grenades and small pockets give an extra effect to make the waist even thicker.

Red Corsair - Get Bulky | WIP I

Here's a small update on my current progress with the Red Corsair project...

After being satisfied by the pose, I started cutting, filing and cleaning up the bits for the conversion stage. I use greenstuff while sculpting because I'm fond to its consistency and rather lazy to try out other materials.

I started working on the legs and chest area, giving them more of that much needed bulkiness. The chest is now a bit bigger than it used to be, but still not enough bulky in my opinion. I'll work on that later. The waist is also way too thin at the moment and needs another round of the greenstuff - or maybe a narrow batten made out of the plasticard.

And here's the power hook in process. I decided to remove part of the plasticard shielding the hook to reveal more of the machinery powering the arm. Two long green strings are small cables still waiting for binding.

I use my thumb nail both as a palette when painting minis and as a base for the modeling putty while sculpting. The nail is always close to what you're working on with and hence very optimal place for these kinds of things.

Red Corsair Blu Tack

Here's an update for the Red Corsairs project. I did some blu tack concepting and ended up choosing this posture for my first Space Pirate Marine. I was looking for static posture with a little hint of periliousness. The way the Astartes takes his step will reflect his unconcerned nature. His head will follow the path and the arrogant expression on his down looking face will pin the idea.

He still looks very much like a standard Astartes and the Corsair isn't that visible yet. The powerhook is already getting some shapes though.

+++

This evening a postman dropped a long waited package in my mailbox. This package included something that I had hoped to own for a quite some time now...

 

After my last drawing session I decided it was time to improve my equipment. So I did. I went and ordered a Junior set of Rotring Rapidograph pens. The pack included three technical drawing pens (0.10, 0.20 and 0.30) and a fine lead mechanical pencil. I hope that with this high quality set I will raise my spirit of drawing to another zealous level. Got to test them this weekend.

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!