Finishing off my Kasrkin squads

So the next thing that's on my painting list are these

I was able to dig out 2 squads of kasrkins 

Iv still got to dugg out three or 4 models out of my garage but I have primed and started work on most of them.

Il be using the same colours as I have with my normal guard troops but I might experiment with some desert style camo patterns so that they stand out abit from normal troops

I still love these miniatures as there sculpts are great and there extra armour dos make them stand out.

Using oil wash

So tragedy struck today when I discovered Iv miss placed my army painter dip :(

And as it was the only day I had to sit down and get some painting done I decided to try something different.

I decided to use an oil wash on my guard as I had done this before but only on smaller projects I thought this would be a test/ trial :0.

Well these are the products I used after doing abit of research on YouTube and google 

1. Oil paint

This is just a standard brown from my local art/ craft shop

2. Thinner/ mineral spirits 

 This is actually mineral spirits although it says whit spirits on the bottle, there is a small "mineral spirits" at the bottom.

So first I had to prep my miniatures, this ment coating them all with a coat of Vallejo gloss varnish that I ran through my airbrush slightly thinned down with a drop of water on a 4:1 ratio of varnish to water.

Once dried I mixed up the oil wash all I did was a pee size drop to two cap dulls of mineral spirits, mixed with an old brush in an old jam jar and once mixed I dropped abit onto some kitchen cloth to see how it dispersed 

 As long as it is soaked up but the kitchen cloth this is an indicator of how thin it is and how well mixed your oil paint/ thinner is.

Then using a wash size brush I applied it to my miniatures endearing a good coverage and that it was not pooling in any unwanted places.

I allied it to dry in a warm room for about 3 hours then with a cotton bud and a small amount of mineral spirits I cleaned ip all the top surfaces gently wiping away the excess, ensure your not to rough when doing this as the gloss varnish is there to protect the underlying paint from the thinner but if you press to hard you might run the risk of stripping the paint away.

Once I was happy that I had cleaned away all the unwanted oil was from the top/ raised surfaces I simply slowed the miniatures to dry for another hour the sealed them with a cost of Vallejo matt varnish.

Overall I'm very happy with this effect and think with abit more practice this will be how I was all my miniatures in the future.

Guard almost ready to dip

So this has been a project that I was putting off for almost a year but now it seems like there is light at the end of the tunnel, yesterday I was able to sit down for half the day and churned out abit more work.

So as you will be able to see I'm not that far way from having my army ready to dip,

All I need todo is all the silver and white and a few splashes of colour and I'm ready

I will need to do a couple of other miniatures but there still in the post but this is the main bulk of my guard army less my rough riders and ogrins. 

Little bit more done

So with christmas and new year out of the way I made my January painting challenge to finish these guard off. 

I dug out my brushes and got some more work done

Just need todo the flesh, hair, silver and ponchos and then there ready to dip

First bit of paint

So I took the plunge and decided to base colour my guard :/

As my airbrush is being cleaned at the moment and not wanting to wait I've gone for the use of a coloured primer as its an easy option

I've gone for leather brown as this is roughly the base colour I was after and I had a can sat about.

 Again abit sunny today so my pics seem grey/ light.

As you can see the army painter spray covers well, it didn't pool in any places or spatter and settled well giving a good surface finish

There is plenty of detail left and I'm now going to do a couple of test to decide on the colour of the armour plates and what shade I should use to highlight the uniform  

To Dip or not to Dip

So as I'm getting ready to start painting my new army I'm finding myself torn on the decision "should I dip them?"

 I've used the Army Painter dip loads of times now with great effect on 15mm upto 28mm but most of it has been rank and file so lots of models with little detail.

 I find the army painter primers are very good, both value and quality and come in a good selection from white and black primer through a decent selection of colours that match both 40k like blood angels, space wolfs and ultra marines all the way through to German grey for FOW or Bolt Action.

The dips come in three shades 

Soft tone.

Strong tone.

Dark tone.

Although there are a fantastic product and will deliver fantastic results for a decent painter it can feel like you are cheating or being lazy.

So this is my conundrum, do I make my life easy and just dip or do I put the effort in and paint my guard and use the standard method and take my time and build up the layers of paint and apply washes and highlights?

                           Or

Do I venture into that dark dark mysterious world of

Oil washes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The start

So after two days of clipping sanding and gluing this is what I have

(Sorry about the pic, very sunny today)

HQ with creed and kell 

7 rough riders 

Veteran platoon x3

As you can see the FW kits I used are old  you can tell this by the colour of the resin, I've mainly used the FW heads and helmets and backpacks to add a small theme and when I can model each guardsman without a helmet but ensuring one is attached to the left side.

Each Sgt or Nco has a peaked forage cap so I can again add a small theme.

I've decided to make sure each squad has a heavy weapons team and also decided all three of my veteran squads will have heavy bolters again adding a theme to my army. Any addition weapons teams will have other heavy weapons but il have to sit down and dig through all the othe bits I have and see what I can make up.

So for now this is my guard

Il be working on the paint scheme later today and once I've decided ill get cracking with it.

Thanks for reading

Fear naught

The Guard Will Rise

After a break away from 40k for over a year (sorry) I've decided to build my guard army, or should I say re build after a insurance claim for an old guard army that was lost had now been settled (one for one) I've not really got any excuse for not building it.

This time I've decided to try and make it look different without slapping tones of green stuff and doing daft conversions.

I've used some old forge world IG conversion kits that I've had sat about since 2004-5 is and some rough riders that I've had since 1991.

I'm going to run it with veterans mounted in transport and try to have it as manoeuvrable as possible, and avoid rank and file and mass numbers.

The paint scheme will be slightly different to what I was going todo as I want them to stand out slightly without being OTT.

Again sorry for the delay and for not posting but please keep an eye open on this and do follow my progress :)

Yesterday i was asked if i would like to paint an Imperial Guard Lord Commissar for my local http://www.wargamestore.com/, but was also asked if i could show step by step how i painted by another friend using my previous paint scheme.

so this is a step by step guide to how its done and how easy a good paint job can be achieved with minimal effort.

• first after a small bit of Assembly i base coated my model with army painter bleach bone colour.

• once this was dry after about 15-25 min, i then painted the cape, peak cap, boots and shoulder pads with Graveyard Earth. iv thinned down my paints a tiny bit but normally one and abit coats dos the job, just so its a solid colour.



• Next i painted all the silver bits like his power sward, chest plate and any trim parts with Mithril Silver. i also painted the fur trim to the top of his cape with Codex grey.

• The next step was simple but it is down to you, i painted the sash with Mechrite red as this colour is a theme in my guard army but as its the most prominent colour on the model you can use any colour you want, blues are good and so are greens, because once there washed the give off a royal affect.
• i also added the first was to his face, using a detail brush i applied a thin layer of Ogryn flesh, allowing it to seep into all the recesses

• Next i painted the hilt of the power sword with Shining gold ant the peak of the cap with Chaos black, once this was dry i washed the whole model APART FROM THE FACE with Devlan mud and allowed to dry.



• next i added any final colours, i leave any small detail colours till after i have washed with Devlan mud so i don't dull or darken them too much. once these colours and final touch ups are done, you now was the model with Badab black APART FROM THE FACE. and allow to dry.

• The final step now was to lightly dry brush the fur to of the cape with a tiny bit of Codex grey, the edge of the sword, trim of the cap and shoulder pads or any part you have painted with Mithril silver just to highlight. doing the same with the hilt of the sword but using Burnished gold.

•  All you need to do now is decide on how you will base your model, sadly i ran out of PVA glue so will have to wait till i get some more

I hope you like this guide and the out come of this painting scheme, please feel free to comment as long as its nice.all the paints and tools use i bought from http://www.wargamestore.com/ which i highly recommend above all, this model will be on display there.



kasrkin Sgt

below is a picture of the Kasrkin Sgt that i undercoated using the army painter bleched bone spray paint. i used the same colour scheem and method i went through in my first post and this is the result.

http://www.wargamestore.com/Spray-p-1-c-260.html this is the store were i found the army painter spray :)



Imperial guard Kasrkin Squad

After an evening of looking through my old Imperial Guard models that i had in my bits box and set in my dads i found a set of Kasrkin storm troopers that i was give along time ago by a friend when he gave up painting and gaming, they were in a bad way and had been painted it all sorts of ways and with some odd paints as you will see below.

Iv now undercoated them using army painter spray paint belched bone and the result is very good and almost no detail has been lost.

over the next few days i will be following the same painting steps i used on my three test models and will see how they come out.