Friday, December 3, 2010

Raptors Test Mini WIP

I'm almost finished with this test of the Raptors Legion color scheme for my Badab project and so far I'm happy with the results. What is particularly nice is that it has been easy to paint and not time consuming either, exactly what I wanted for this army. I'm still waiting on my sheet of chapter transfers from Forge World so whatever weathering I'm going to attempt on him will have to wait until those are in place. Otherwise I don't think there's much left to do with this one. Good!

I'm quite pleased with how my first Raptor Space Marine is turning out and so I plan to next paint the four remaining Devastator Marines that make up the test mini's squad. I may attempt to also paint those Assault Marines at the same time depending on how things go. I'd like to work on building up my painting speed as I go along since I have a fair number of these guys assembled and ready. I'm about 80% sure at this point that I will use my Raptors in the Combat Patrol event at AdeptiCon so my goal now is to have them painted quickly to allow me time to become comfortable playing them and hopefully try out a variety of lists at that point level.

Also I've had more fun painting this test miniature than I had first anticipated so I think that's a positive sign for this new army. In fact I want to get right back to the painting so I'll just say goodnight and happy gaming, everyone. Bye!

11 comments:

  1. Nice one Paps, I reckon with the FW transfers it will look killer. Its a really cool colour scheme and not one I often see.


    Are you going to flock it? I would recommend a light tan (dried) colour to offset against the armour and base colours, rather than green which would clsh with the green armour).

    Pom

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  2. Brooding scheme. I like it and with the white markings it will really jump. I'm with Pom on base colour - something redder would really set off the green.

    It's good it's fun to paint too - that's got to be one of the key criteria even for a smaller force.

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  3. @ Rogue Pom - I'm eager to try out the FW transfers but I'm also a little nervous as it's been years and years since the last time I put one of those on a miniature. I'm sure it will be an interesting learning experience for me... all I remember from before was accidentally ripping about half my ultramarine badges and getting really frustrated. That was however with some very old GW transfers probably that were packaged with all the old Space Marine sets. I'm hopeful these FW ones will be a little higher quality this many years removed from back then. We'll see.... : )

    As for the base on this guy, I'm not sure exactly what I want to do with it. I think you're right though about staying away from any more green on him. Whether flock or static grass or something else, I am leaning more toward dried out and/or burnt-looking colors. Thank you for the suggestion, I appreciate it!

    @ Porky - I'm very glad to get such feedback, thank you! I'm planning a trip to the LGS this weekend so that I can look around and inspect my basing options. I'm confident I'll at least be able to find something more suitable than the bright green grass that I have now. And it is indeed exciting for me to have found a color scheme that I enjoy so much. Many times in the past when painting Space Marines it's felt more like a laborious chore getting them done. Even though I may have liked the end results, getting there was not a particularly fun process. This however feels quite refreshing and I'm really looking forward to working more on this project... ah, good times!

    Thank you, Porky!

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  4. Simple and clean paint job, good work. These will look awesome once they're all done and in a unit.

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  5. This is looking good so far man! Nice to see something a little unusual. I will say, however, that it looks like he's sending a text message lol! great stuff!

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  6. @ Thor - Thank you! It was nice for me painting such a straightforward color scheme and I'm psyched to have found something which I should be able to keep consistent without too much trouble. I normally would stop at this point but all my marines end up looking like they're fresh from the parade grounds. I therefore do want to experiment some dirtying him up but I've never really attempted any type of weathering before now. Hopefully I won't mess things up too much but I suppose that's why he is the test figure for this army. If I'm going to screw up something, I'd rather it be now for sure! Thanks, Thor!

    @ whencannonsfade - Haha... sometimes a marine just doesn't have time for chitchat. "Cant talk now, am purging xenos. Will pick up promethium and groceries on way home. Burn heretics, LOL!" A text messaging marine actually would fit in with my collection pretty well I think. When I tried to model the interior of a dreadnought sometime ago it ended up looking like the entombed marine was playing a GameBoy!

    I'm happy you like the way this one is going, thanks WCF!

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  7. DUDE, this looks awesome! really love the color and how it turned out. I always wanted to do a marine chapter in this color scheme, Raptors or not. Good to hear it's on the easy side, if anything gets me to stop working on my stuff it's the painting..... which is why I chose a red army apparently.... :\

    Just how did you do the color anyway?

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  8. Looking good. I find it very tricky painting armour but I can see you highlighted the green very well. The beauty about miniatures in units is that they look amazing when placed together.What paints are those next to GW out of interest?

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  9. Looking good there my friend, Im a bit miffed waiting for my green primer so I can do my test mini, got the two test heads done in between couthing, sneezing and calling out "Get the Apothecary!"

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  10. @ Rich - Right on, thank you! I do like Space Marines in their customary, brightly colored heraldic schemes, I think it's cool to also see them occasionally adopt these more traditionally militaristic looking colors. I've been tempted to paint an army green colored Space Marines army for a while, I'm glad I finally found the motivation with this Badab War project.

    For the green armor I started with, in fact, Army Green Colored Primer from the Army Painter, followed by washing the entire mini in Devlan Mud. After that I lightly drybrushed the armor with P3's Traitor Green, then just highlighted the most prominent edges with P3's Thrall Flesh. If you're using Citadel paints then Camo Green and Rotting Flesh should be good equivalents.

    I'm actually going to try putting together a step-by-step type of guide for painting Raptors in this way. That way I won't have to worry about forgetting how I did something or having to keep up with scraps of paper where to many of my painting notes end up. If something like that can be helpful for others then all the better. I'll work on it this weekend so check back with me in a couple days if you're interested.

    Thanks, Rich!

    @ Bartender - Thank you very much, sir! I'm glad you like this one, though I admit still not as cool as Imperial Fists would be. ; ) I'm looking forward to having more these guys painted for the very reason you mentioned. Miniatures do love company!

    Along with GW paints I am also using the P3 line of paints made by Privateer Press. I got to spend a weekend using P3 paints at the last AdeptiCon and was really impressed with them. I've been painting with P3 colors for a few months now and am quite happy with them so far.

    Thank you, Bartender!

    @ Derina - Thanks! Though a recent convert, I am now totally onboard the colored primer bandwagon. As mentioned above I am using Army Green spray paint on these Raptors and am so grateful for it. Not having to paint on that first color by hand saves so much time! Best wishes to you and feel free to send those Apothecaries my way when your done with 'em. Take care, Derina!

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