Hello, everyone! After painting, repainting, and restarting after years long hiatus, I finally decided to throw my brush misdeeds out for some C&C. Or the voices in my head made me do it. Anyway, without further ado: THE AUXILLARIES Spoiler: CHAKSA AUXILIARS The scheme for Chaksas of my army came to me first, and it was very easy. The inspiration for it, laughably enough, was 'potato fries with ketchup'. Yeah, I was hungry. No, I'm not ashamed. This was actually my first paintjob after the hiatus of about 5 years. I'm rusty, and to be honest I wasn't a good painter even then. There are some points I would likely improve some time later on, when I'm not feeling so lazy - some edge highlights on red armor would be good I think. Speaking of laziness - the yellow is entirely Iyanded Yellow Citadel Contrast (with Scale75 Fall Green under it in some places, where I got out of bounds with red). I felt good enough about the Contrasts after that, and it will show in later minis. Spoiler: LIBERTOS FREEDOM FIGHTERS Everybody's favourite toad-fish-man-killer. Here I met my love, Snakebite Leather Contrast. This is probably one of the best painted minis in my army right now, in feel if not in quality. Or maybe I feel like that because this guy managed to DEP a TRBot and a Cateran off the table. In ARO. The lighting on these fotos is a bit meh, in real life the eyes pop more, they're like very bright yellow compared to the skin of the face. I will probably add some light-bluish spots on the skin, like those on some of fishes. Or maybe I won't, haven't decided yet. THE UNFINISHEDS Spoiler: KAMAEL LIGHT INFANTRY Chronologically these guys come after Chaksa Auxiliars, but before everything else. After finishing the potatoes, I started thinking about the color scheme for the Tohaa. I wanted purple in it, but without toxic green or black a-la Evangelion 01. After thinking and trying out some paints I stopped on the purple-bright turquoise-dark greenish gray. These poor guys ended up being my guinea pigs, because I never (well, almost) take Kamael in my lists. I've painted three of them to look more-or less decently, to be tabletop-worthy. Maybe I'll come back to them, strip and repaint is their destination. THE SKIRMISHBANDS Spoiler: MAKAUL TROOPS The bread, butter and pickles of any Tohaa list, those guys were when I started finalizing the color scheme. I still used contrasts on them, but in the end I had to rethink my plans. Shyish Violet is shit (or at least my bottle of it is) - it painted either blotchy and spotty if I used little paint, or instantly went almost black if I used more. Also, Terradon Turquoise ended up being too close in color to my choice of bright turquoise - Scale75's Carribean Blue washed with Citadel's Coelia Greenshade. The only good choice was Snakebite Leather. I fixed up the violets as well as I could with Vallejo Model Color 70.959 Purple, washed with Citadel's Druchii Violet. The skin is Citadel's Bleached Bone (now Ushabti Bone IIRC), the shades on the face is Citadel's Carroburg Crimson, and the "fur" on arms is Guilliman's Flesh washed with Carroburg Crimson. All in all, I'm more or less satisfied with their overall look on the table. Not with the quality though. And the less said about painting tipsy the better (second guy from the left can attest to that). THE VETERANS Spoiler: SAKIEL REGIMENT The always-Lieutenant. The boring. The weird-posed (like, really). The missing-the-box. Yet for all of that - one of the best. This guy was a breeze again, regardless of the old itsy-bitsy sculpt. I especially liked how easy it was for me to split him up into color zones. The best part IMO - the helmet, I somehow managed to make the contrast not splotch on the flat curve of his forehead. Also tried out lazy drybrush on the shoulderpads - contrast splotched. The result - so-so, I think mostly because I used a wrong brush (didn't want to get purple everywhere with the Citadel drybrushing one, it's so wide). THE ELITES Spoiler: KAELTAR SPECIALISTS The rust finally started flaking off I think. Those are the first minis I felt good-good about, not just good enough. I also decided on the final scheme on the lady Kaeltar, dropping dark turquoise-green of Terradon Turquoise for the grey of Basilicanum Grey contrast. They were surprisingly not_difficult or exhausting to paint. I also found the recipe for purples that satisfied me - Tamiya Fine Grey primer (which is light gray - look at the base), then Citadel's Magos Purple contrast in one or two layers, depending on the initial coverage, and then, after dry - one to two coats of Citadel's Druchii Violet wash. Lazy shades, lazy highlights and the proper shade of violet - I was so happy to find this recipe. The only thing I maybe need to fix is the coats. Maybe drybrush with Carribean Blue + white, maybe repaint complerely... But for now I feel good about them. Spoiler: GAO-RAEL UNIT The latest miniature to be painted as of posting of this thread. Finalized color scheme - purple (Magos Purple on light gray primer + Druchii Violet) armor plates, gray (Basilicanum Gray on light gray primer) cloth and turquoise (Carribean Blue + Coelia Greenshade + drybrush Carribean Blue mix with white) symbioarmor (or cloak/jacket if no symbioarmor). This one was so fast and easy, I still cannot believe it. Around 3 hours of work (yes, for me that's like Sanic fast). I experimented with the gun, usually I go for Boltgun Metal, then wash with Nuln Oil, but this time I tried painting it black with Templar Black, and then drybrushing with Boltgun Metal. I'm not really sold on the result, but I'm not disgusted either. Need more tries, I think. So that's all my current minis for now. Comments and critique are welcome =)
Thanks =) Also, keeping you posted: THE VETERANS Spoiler: SAKIEL REGIMENT The always-Lieutenant. The boring. The weird-posed (like, really). The missing-the-box. Yet for all of that - one of the best. This guy was a breeze again, regardless of the old itsy-bitsy sculpt. I especially liked how easy it was for me to split him up into color zones. The best part IMO - the helmet, I somehow managed to make the contrast not splotch on the flat curve of his forehead. Also tried out lazy drybrush on the shoulderpads - contrast splotched. The result - so-so, I think mostly because I used a wrong brush (didn't want to get purple everywhere with the Citadel drybrushing one, it's so wide).
