The 39th Eoforwich Pioneer Corps.
Its no surprise to anyone who's followed my work that I love guard armies.
My last one (the 111st royston rifles) was an experiment in simple basecoat and wash/highlight painting on highly converted models.
I think it worked out pretty good all told.
however.
looking back at it now I can see that although intended to be a generic go-to guard army with ties to classic cadians, steel legion, dkok, elysian droptroops and a fair degree of idea poaching from everyone's favourite rubricist, a certain mr Apologist, all in one army, it does indeed reference all these but to an effect that washes out a specific regimental style in a sea of mixed-weapons, armour and a lot of flectarn fatigues...
And in truth, although t'was indeed intended as a quick-job paint scheme, I know can do far,
far better with very little extra effort as far as painting is concerned these days.
my carcharodons are slowly reaching a natural end as far as the project is concerned, I've touched on pretty much all the originaly intended things I wanted to cover in the project; better-scaled marines in various armour marks, rt inspired reiver beakies, palanite scouts, better bikes and classic rhino and of course the current project of the heavy intercessor termies, all with the classic retro and rogue trader and second edition references within.
my planned fallen angels have hit a dead end creatively and I may or may not return to this as time goes on.
so what to do next then?
more guard of course!
I figured I would choose a single aspect/design-cue and stick to it more solidly this time round.
Also, its a perfect opportunity to utilise all the new techniques and skills I've sharpened up on since doing the sharks and the fallen one, mixing it in with what I did on the 111st RR's and see whats occuring.
so I needed a theme and went for the grimest-of-the-grim trench-warfare setting as this meant, with clever stylings, the army could be used as loyalist or rebellious guard depending on how I was feeling at the time and whomsoever my opponent may be...
so dkok then?
HA! don't make me laugh
bitterly...
I know I said I just got a new job but it doesn't pay THAT much LOL. who's does!?
no seriously its indeed the perfect style but is rather overdone and in truth I've never been wowed by fw's resin quality on infantry if I'm honest. never got all the fuss.
still anvil on the other hand? yes please. the regiments range is a thing of beauty and it's interconnectivity makes it the obvious choice for avid converters.
I'm going to go for a simple short greatcoat and the brodie-helmet-gasmask heads as its a nice mix. I really dig (pun intended) the british look it gives, a design cue that gw seem to have overlooked in the guard ranges over the years.
think about it;
steel legion - ww2 german paratroops
dkok - ww1 french/german hybrids
cadians (classic metal) - ww2 us troops (the plastic ones are clearly starship trooper inspired)
catachan - nam/predator muscle-men?
valhallan - ww2 soviet
mordian - traffic wardens?
look, I could go on but you get the point I'm sure...
anyway this:
will be the generic troop look.
I will be adding lots of kit and trench warfare stuff from gw though. same for the weapons these will be imperial and a few bits from the gsc range (not as much as the 111st did though, just sgts and officers). I'll be adding subterainian excavation kit as I did on my royston rifles engineers but instead of having explicit engineers units within the army I'm going for a simple riflemen's company that instead has trench/sapper design elements across the board.
due partly to the fact that ive just been informed by one of my new colegues that gw have pretty much ditched all/many of the specialist dkok units over to 'legend' units. making future game support somewhat unlikely. considering how long its likely for me to take to get anything playable sized on this project thats not a good start so I'm playing it safe and keepiing it simple. just as with the space-sharks...
the colourscheme will not exclusively reflect british ww2 though. thats where I'll be taking a bit from the germans again...
another idea for this army is to only use current paints in the citadel range, allowing for dead paints to be easily replaced as the project continues.
as I've not got the resin yet (hell, its not even on order yet!), and to make this opening post more than just a mass of rambling text, Ive dug out an old steel legion I had unpainted and given the scheme a dry run:
as you can see I've gone for the classic muted greens and browns you expect from guard but in more detail and coherance than I've ever managed to conjour up before on a guard mini.
instead of the boring old plain kahki fatigues of the british trencher's I've elected to go for germanic camo scheme again, this time pea-dot not flectarn.
flectarn was great for the other army as it is tecnically a more modern camo but has a retro feel to it that suited the loose theme of the royston boys that would swing violently between ww2 and modern warfare in the minitures among the squads.
this time I wanted a dowdier brown scheme with accents of green, not t'other way round and as such peadot is ideal.
the colours are simple.
here's a basic lowdown on the process for those wanting to emulate it.
base the coat in steel legion drab. (how appropriate, eh?)
then it time to go dotty, equally dot over the basecoat with the following paints, overlapping and joining some dots together into coudly blobs as you progress, keep the paint as thin as you would for highlighting, you want colour not texture
:
deathworld forest (this will hardly show at this stage but is needed for variation later on, its why we do it first as its easily overlooked when applying it)
Waaagh flesh
Loren forest
cadian fleshtone (yes you read that right, trust me go look at real pea-dot if you dont belive me)
abaddon black
now, you want to grab some zandri dust and highlight all the edges and creases going over the camo too as if its all just the same plain steel legion drab underneath.
also add some areas of scratches and weathering around collars, cuffs, elbows and pocket areas too, try to keep the scratches +/- going in the same direction in bunches.
this is to emulate the fabric wear that has rubbed the camo-stain away somewhat, revealing the plain kahki material neath it.
yes, I am aware that I've asked you to highlight the thing before you've even washed it. this is intentional so while you're at it,
base the helmet (and any other armour areas on another model) in waaagh flesh and highlight/chip/scratch it with loren forest followed by a lighter highlight of deathworld forest.
the mask is basecoated loren forest and highlighted with deathworld forest and deathguard green.
the bedroll (or some larger pockets or "soft" kit if you want on another model) is castellan green highlighted with deathworld forest and deathguard green
brown leather
(this can be applied two different ways across a mini and is ideal for belts pockets and holsters too, feel free to swap this about across the army. it won't effect the overall unified look. but will add some contrast and character to induvidual models)
on this one, the light leather on the main belt and webbing is done with mournfang brown highlighted/scratched with steellegion drab and zandri dust.
the dark leather on the gloves and gogglestrap is done with rhinox hide also highlighted/scratched with steellegion drab and zandri dust.
the grey plastic/bakelite grips on knives and pistolgrips/stocks etc are done with skavenblight dinge highlighted with mechanicus standard grey and dawnstone.
do the same greys on the trou. or if you prefer you could also do the trousers as the bedroll was painted if you prefer green to grey... both work fine as far as the scheme goes.
the black leather on the boots are simple abaddon black base with highlights and scratches in skavenblight dinge followed by mechanicus standard grey and dawnstone to the top edges only. from the bottom up drybrush rhinox hide to emulate mud/filth.
metal-work is simple 50/50 leadbelcher/abaddon black base. folowed by nuln oil wash (gun only, leave the buckles and goggle-rims etc for now)
flesh is simple ratskin flesh base, follwed by a second base of cadian fleshtone. then pick out the eyes using asministratum grey and abaddon black and highlight the skin with cadian fleshtone mixed with a little white incrementally to taste.
the shoulder badge is abaddon black with a simple skavenblight dinge highlight for the disc, the lightning bolt is just a simple base of mephiston red. thats all
the highlights might look plenty odd at this stage. do not fret. the next step is the magic one.
now wash the entire thing (minus gun) in 70/30 agrax earthshade nuln oil wash
(this is not really a true ratio of what I use I actually use 2.5ml of nuln oil put in a 24ml agrax earthshade pot. what ratio is that anyway? I'm a complete spaz with maths and ratios. anyway thats what I use all the time for this so I always have a pot pre-mixed. In fact, I never use agrax on its own anymore... this was the closest I could get to devlan mud using the current citadel range)
once dry the highlights will have blended everso gently with the undercoats and bases creating a beautiful transition between the two.
now you can simply go back over any bits you want to re highlight with the final highlight colour used from each stage respectively.
this is especially vital of the highlight and weathering on the jacket with the zandri dust.
this time around you can do it everso more slightly than before, the neat highlight colour appearing as an even lighter colour on itself in the wake of the heavy wash phase.
simply highlight the lightning bolt on the badge with plain mephiston red over itself again.
use neat leadbealcher (I've used boltgun metal here, but I've lodas of that left but leadbelcher would be fine) to chip and highlight the metalwork.
while you're at this, you can also feel free to add some tiny metal scratches to the helmet or other amour edges as you see fit but I've not on this one.
abaddon black the goggle lenses and go over them in high gloss varnish.
base of choice and he's done!
I'll admit now the base on this was an afterthought, I'd much rather have done the bases with greenstuff soil with cork rocks and crackle effects and all that as on my space sharks but this was only ever a test mini so this simple flock, leaf and grass was all he'll get.
metalwork is a bit lacklustre too but as I say, this was not the focus on this model... its all about nailing the other parts of the scheme.
the next lot in resin will be better, I'm sure!
so more soon?
I sure hope so or making this whole thread was a real waste of time LOL
