[Tale Of Painters] Crimson Fists- Pic heavy!

[The Paint Monkey]

OK, so, I've been a bit lax in my posting but I've got time now that university is done with for the year and before my work placements kick off.


You might remember that my first month I already had a tactical squad painted. They were my trial squad to see what I thought of the scheme. I wanted to include them in my army so for the first month I painted a second tactical squad for a local indie retailer and subbed in my already painted squad. 1 squad painted = 1 squad for the month (they just weren't the same squad).


Here's the squad I painted for the retailer (November)-







And this is the squad I'll be substituting in, so are actually part of my army. The ones above aren't mine to use but I might borrow them should Apocalypse happen to me.







Here's the squad I painted for the second month (December deadline), but didn't get around to posting pictures of (damn you, study!!), so got jokered instead.








And here's this month's! (January deadline) Two whole tactical squads!! I think this has got me on track points-wise and has me over the 200pt mark for my freebie-xmas-joker. Hurrah!

Squad 3






Squad 4







Army shot- everyone all together.





Next month will probably be Terminators, or possibly scouts. I'd prefer to do termies but I did this trial scout for the painting comp and quite enjoyed it. Might just be because he wasn't in blue power-armour!!








So... there we are. I'm going to go away and work out some points and then post them. I've really been aiming at a squad per month but I'm pretty sure my Tacticals are under 200pts each.

I've also still included the squad from the jokered month because, as you may have noticed, no-one is based. I'm planning on keeping a month or even a joker to base everyone all at once. Hopefully I'll get 200pts ahead at some point and be able to add nothing to the army and instead just do bases for a month- they're really quite time consuming!!

[theyak]

that is a great looking squad there monkey. Good job!(and for whatever reason, the scout pic here is much better than the one posted in the contest thread.if they are separate pics, I would encourage you to put this one out there.)

[C/-Rt3r]

Very nicely done but in all honosty i think they are a little boring. Ive seen your Ogre Stuff and it is amazing. Perhaps your not setting the bar as high? I think the blues could use a few more shades.

[Tekore]

Nicely done, and I love Crimson Fists in the first place. Keep up the great work!

Tekore

[xbanditsx]

I really like the special / heavy weapon marines and your sergeants (and the scout), but the normal marines, especially in the last picture, look a but undistinguished. The blue looks very good, but the models seem to all blend together. It might just be that they are mostly dark blue on black bases, so hopefully when you paint the bases they will pop more.

Also, I'm impressed at your ability to bang out 50 marines (your 4 squads and the one other, right?) in such a short amount of time. Power armour gets so boring to paint that I can't do more than 5 or 6 before getting burnt out and moving on.

[The Paint Monkey]

Originally Posted by xbanditsx

I really like the special / heavy weapon marines and your sergeants (and the scout), but the normal marines, especially in the last picture, look a but undistinguished. The blue looks very good, but the models seem to all blend together. It might just be that they are mostly dark blue on black bases, so hopefully when you paint the bases they will pop more.

Also, I'm impressed at your ability to bang out 50 marines (your 4 squads and the one other, right?) in such a short amount of time. Power armour gets so boring to paint that I can't do more than 5 or 6 before getting burnt out and moving on.

Thanks! You and C/-Rt3r both raise some good points and they're certainly things I've thought about.

@C/-Rt3r- You're absolutely right they're not up to the Pirate Ogre standard but unfortunately they were never meant to be. These guys were all about rapid production. These 4 or 5 squads took about as long as 1.5-2 ogres. Truly. I couldn't commit to another 'full effort' army. As much as I'd really want to produce the best models I can I just can't afford the time. On the plus side- I frequently add extra detail or highlights to squads that perform well in battle, so with a bit of luck they whoel army will slowly improve over time. :party:


The question of the bases and the blurring together is a good one and one I'm stuck on. It's probably why I've put off the basing until later. If you look at the scout model, his base is the direction I'll be heading. I'm also seriously considering using snow flock on the bases. The long-term plan for the army is to have them looking worn and slightly beaten-up. Snow and snowy mud work well with this. I'm also hoping that the white snow will work as a 'frame' for each figure. The marines are intentionally dark (they aren't no Ultramarines- these guys are a shady crowd) and I"m worried that the model and the base will blur too much if the base is too dark also.

What do you think guys?

[Tekore]

When I started basing my new Space Marines lately, I tried several snow base products and really didn't like how they came out. Later I found this site, and used the methods there, which came out fantastic. http://www.dysartes.com/model/modelling/snowbase.php

There's a pic of how mine came out near the bottom of this thread, which shows that even a complete rube can do it easily. Best of all, it's very very cheap. http://www.librarium-online.com/foru...=107396&page=6

Hope this helps!

Tekore

[xbanditsx]

I think the white of the snow will be a good contrast to the blue and will help make the models stand out more. I was also thinking you could add some more red to the models, perhaps as a shoulder icon or the knee / elbow pads. Mostly they look great though.

[C/-Rt3r]

Impressive that you have banged this amout out. And as i commented, i suspected you werent working too the best of your abilities.. As for the blending together i think the bases will help signifigantly. Perhaps consider painting the black edges of the bases brown or somesuch to further differentiate.

[The Paint Monkey]

Yep, those are both good ideas. I'll have to finish the bases on the commission ones as soon as I finish the matching tyranids. Hopefully that'll give a good idea of how they'll look. I'll up-date when they're done.

Anyone know if I have to post in the main thread too?