thanks Lord B!
So. my back is fine now.
in fact it was fine after the same weekend it went out!
I studiously did all the excercises and rested heavily and was back to work as usual on monday.
so far so good. but don't want to jinx it. Ive been a lot more carefull and I'm making sure not to overtax myself and to hydrate more. thats a killer for backs...
the skin?
white ink mate...
I just basecoat in ratskin flesh. then go over with cadian fleshtone.
cadian fleshtone mixed with skavenblight dinge for stubble, then clean up with cadian fleshtone.
then you keep adding white ink into cadian fleshtone to highlight up.
oh yeah, I forget.
I also use bugmans glow in a similar fasion under the eyes and on the bottom lip.
then its washed to shade and cleaned up with more white-ink/cadian fleshtone and then extra spot shading done to taste. then eyes.
done...
sounds like a lot but its actually pretty straight forward in actual practice. the constant adding of white ink to lighten and doing smaller and smaller highlights per layer is the key...
as for the camo? it was going on the shoulder, knee, helmet and torso armour plates. but might not now, I think I have other plans for the scheme. Yup I cahnge my mind a lot, but I want it right in the end...
so, if my backs better I have painted stuff?
erm, no not at present.
but meet the filey 42nd droptroops!
An off-shoot paratroop regiment from the Eoforwich system thats inspired by elysian guard and the U.S 101st airbourne...
here's a full squad-shot of the infantry squad I have so far:
as you can see
I am the madman that bought the dkok plastics,
just to use the arms and pockets...
well, why not, everyone else is going to be using the bodies, I wanted something different.
Don't get me wrong, its a fantastic kit. but I warn anyone getting it or more specifically bits from it, get the god-damned instructions!
Its a real clusterfuck as far as sprue-layout and shared bits are concerned.
The other thing is that, in truth, the arms are very specific for the bodies they are designed for.
Meaning that simply slapping them onto some cadians (or anvil stuff, as I have here) is not as straight forward as you might imagine.
Lots of trimming, repositioning and greesstuffing required to get the poses all good and natural. consider yourselves pre-warned...
as aforementioned, the heads are from madrobot minis over in the states.
The Jim Cameron's Aliens inspired, "CDF trooper" heads.
yes they are colonial marines helmets. but just look at the masks and goggles combo going on there!
the mask is an obvious homage to the cadian/elysian rebreathers, the helmet itself very U.S military, but features all the extra raised panelling and camera details that are reminiscent of the kasrkin cadian helmets, without going too chunky or loosing the generic paratroop look.
and the goggles scream pure steel legion!
what a potent mix, eh?
I feel the heads mostly look like the lovechild of the elysians and steel legion. mostly...
I went to Anvil industries for the bodies/legs (who else?).
I picked the light armour torso for the nice plates on the chest and back mixed with the molee vest detail that makes them fit in real nicely with the bebbanburg commandos but retain the up-armoured look that the dkok arms give...
the next obvious choice was the fatigue legs. more molee detail and the essential kneepads, plus they do not have the overhanging 'jacket' detail, making the fatigues look more akin to the elysian all-in-one jumpsuit. which is just what I wanted...
I trimmed a few of the rifles down to create a carbine version of the lucius pattern lasgun. Ideal for droptroops. Some I left full length.
why? well the 'slung' rifles made altering the barrel length a bit of a cowson to alter without considerable work and I found I rather liked the mixed bag of weapon length. much like how the 101'st used both m1 rifle and m1 carbine in mixed units...
I left it about half and half in the squad for as equal distribtion as possible, given the limitations of the kit.
Their kit is mostly the packs from the dkok (I felt they looked a bit parachutey but are clearly just kit-bags) but ditched the respirator tubes, one, to distance it from the dkok a bit and two, to make it seem a little lighter.
I went for primaris marine pockets (assault sprue and heavy int's) for that "new pocket" detail that I love and used the tactical and sternguard krack/frag grenade combo bits to give each guy one of each where possible. Also I made sure that each guy also has a waterbottle (cadian).
This was obviously
not a feature on the 39th, who are mostly an entrenched unit, with bunkers and supplies aplenty, these guys are droptroops, they need to take all they need
with them!
I've also used some of the deathwatch/scout chest pockets for an extra detail hither and yon and also to hide the odd bad join
This use of the same amount and style of standard kit on each model, again, where possible (rifle, pack, grenade, pocket, waterbottle.) gave the squad the feeling of one of the gw releases of the 2nd and 3rd edition era the chunky astartes nades and cadian waterbottles in particular were designs visibly shared across the board on many of the guard units of yesteryear: 2nd ed cadians, catachans, modians, valhallans and tallarns all used these...
disperate kit is something thats better suited to veteran units, where standardisation is lost for induviduality. I feel I lost a bit of this 'standardisation' on the 39th infantry, mixing the grenade/kit styles up a bit too much. fine on the stormtroopers, commandos and veterans but its a bit sloppy on file infantry in truth and this time round (with these droptroops) I endeavour not to do that...
The grenade launcher was the obvious choice. its all I ever put in infantry squads these days, great all rounder and it helps that the breachloaders look rather cool too
I decided on a strict 'no-heavies' policy in the squads too, these would be fielded exclusively as sperate units or simply cover that with the 39ths entrenched artillery of mortars and heavybolters. who wants to drop out of an aricraft with a heavy bolter or whatever anyhow? no, makes MUCH more sense to use drop canisters and stick to six-man units to recover them or, as I say, leave that side of warfare to the 39th!
I ummed and ahhed on the bolter on the sgt. I think it looks so bad on the dkok model but then, when dry-fitting onto the sgt during construction I fell in love with the look. the simple addition of the 'stock' from the second edition bolter, mk3 marine boltgun-mag pocket and dw chestrig shells made the thing look ideal. if the rifles and carbines are m1's respectively, this bolter is the thompson!
to make it obvious he is in charge, I put the skull on the lid (shaved from an old bolter) to match the squad designations of the 39th and as an extra detail I sculpted some simple scarf neckerchiefs to both him and the squad's corporal, the second in command who takes half the squad should it decide to split into two fireteams...
a simple yet fun detail that helps mark these guys out and references the more veteran status of them, the neckerchiefs are cut fom chutes from previous jumps, you see.
Twas indeed tricky to get some of the poses going naturally (arse-scratch/pocketgrab reloading dude for example) without them being verbatim copies of the stuff in the dkok kit but thats where a bit of ingenuity and creativity comes in. thats the real fun part. using stuff in ways its not intended to be to make something new but not obviusly converted is the crux of a good kit-bash. it should look like it's
supposed to look that way. not fudged to... I'm first to admit it doesn't always work though... that gl guy looks a bit spack from some angles... bah, nevermind eh?
so why aren't these guys painted in any capacity yet?
well I'm not done yet. thats where I need your help guys!
I desperately need knives for the guys.
I want them on the lower legs ideally, down the side, joined where the kneepad is.
I'll say now, the cadian ones are far too large, as are the catachan. I ideally want a dagger type, shaped like the stormtrooper ones a bit but they are both far too large and overly ornate on the scabbards... sigh
marine knives are just as absurdly huge and oftimes without scabbards.
*edit* victoria minis ones are also too big, coming in +/- te same size as the cadian or stormtrooper blades. *end*
I thought anvil would have something. they do have some kabar type knives available but their sprue only has two in the scabbards and they are, again rather huge...
there were some forgeworld ones available which would have been ideal
In fact I used some as bootkniveson my steel legion I did years ago.
they were either elysian or cadian upgrade (or both) but I'm snookered if I can find some anywhere these days...
anyone got any? open to sell? let me know!
I'm also open to suggestions to what to use. third party or whatever. I eagerly await your suggestions guys!
dont be shy, let me know what you think I could use...
