Red Scorpions

[Greyall]

That Predator sure is smooth and clean. Very good job.

[blackbabyjesus]

so with part one of my LPC vow completed, I'm now onto part two: Sternguard. Eventually I want to bulk it out to a full 10 man squad, or possibly 2 five man squads but with no numbers on them so I can up them to a 9 man unit and have a spare sergeant knocking about. The next 5 will have to wait until after the LPC is finished though!

Here's the first 5, no combi weapons in this lot, there'll be 4 combi meltas in the next batch. Had a go at doing a lefty too, I don't think I used exactly the right arms, but it worked out ok and the greenstuffing required was pretty light. Not so with the Umbra Ferrox bolters though, I'm used to Forgeworld stuff needing a little extra cleaning but these things were a mess, great big pits right underneath the scope on every single one, took me a good hour of scraping and greenstuffing to get them looking acceptable.

Here's the line-up, sans bolters (I leave them off so I can paint the fronts of the marines easier, then attach them at the end).

And here's a rough combi melta conversion I did when a bit bored, I think for the ones I'll be putting on the models I'll make the foregrip a little lower so there's more room for the bolter barrel, it all looks a little squashed at the moment.

Comments/criticism gladly received!

[Ferro]

am really enjoying your work. Keep it up, these look fantastic!

[blackbabyjesus]

Thanks Ferro, your scorpions are looking pretty sweet too!

Sternguard are complete and have been for some time, just haven't set my lightbox up at my new house yet, photos possibly tomorrow!

Next part of my LPC is now WIP.... ENTER THE CONTEMPTOR! Pose is perhaps a little overdone, but I'm thinking that's for a good reason, it looks cool!

Base is pretty much blank at the moment, just a styrofoam 'rock' for him to stand on, needs texturing and the dread itself is lacking brass etch, though I'm still undecided about it, thinking I might just use decals instead. All the surfaces are nice and flat and I have a whole sheet of decals to use!

Here's some photos for you all:

BTW, this model is a PAIN IN THE ASS to build, so many parts.... used maybe 3 inches of brass rod on pinning and nearly threw the whole thing out the window trying to dry fit it all!

Worth it in the end though, since it's so much better than the standard dreadnought.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

I think I'm the only person in the world who really, really hates the Contemptor model.

 

Anyway, your models (other than the fat Contemptor) are fantastic and you evidently have mucho, mucho talent. Every time I come in here I end up severely regretting choosing Blood Angels over Red Scorpions.

[Brother Argent]

I think I'm the only person in the world who really, really hates the Contemptor model.

 

Nope, my thoughts are the same. On the Contemptor at least.

 

Love your conversions though. Wish I could do that...

[Grizzly_bear]

Amazing work here mate, very very inspiring, well done.

 

rob

[daemonclaw]

your scorpions are awesome. i have always wanted to do an army of these guys and just when i thought i had got over the idea, you sir have rekindled my addiction :lol:

any chance of a shot of the combimelta from other side?

[blackbabyjesus]

Thanks all for the comments, I'll admit I wasn't sold on the contemptor initially... it just kinda grew on me.

 

your scorpions are awesome. i have always wanted to do an army of these guys and just when i thought i had got over the idea, you sir have rekindled my addiction :lol:

any chance of a shot of the combimelta from other side?

 

Erm, it's pretty much the same as this side, but without the compressor tank type thingy, it's not a complicated conversion, I just moved the barrel and stuck a bit on the side!

 

Though I've just discovered a bunch of commander combi meltas in my bitz box, so I'll probably end up using those instead of butchering more meltaguns!

[punkfish]

That is one good looking Captain!!

 

The Predator is very nicely done too.

 

I like the look of your Sternguard so far as well - nice builds, pity you had such problems with the Umbra Bolters though. I suppose it's luck of the draw with Forgeworld sometimes. Can't wait to see them with some paint on. A worthy vow indeed.

[Emperor's Instrument]

James how is it that in the two years this thread has been on here I've only just found it now???

 

I think your Templars were good (especially that banner) but I like these a hell of a lot more. The flowers in the Severin Loth pictures are a nice touch too ;-)

[blackbabyjesus]

Not entirely sure Jon! Weirdly I'm spending less time on these than the templars, but getting much better results overall... hopefully when I'm 'finished' as well the army will be a little more competitive.

 

What're you up to these days? Still rocking out the BAs?

[Emperor's Instrument]

Yeah, I've finished a 2k DC army. One day I will line highlight the Stormravens but I just can't face it. I'm working on a Redeemer for the five SH Termies that I've added on to bring it up to 2.5k.

 

I did manage to complete a 1500pt Sang Guard army in only 6 weeks though so I'll stick some pictures up within the next week or so.

 

Next on the list though is increase my Daemons to 2k, use two FW Brass Scorpions as Soulgrinders and replace my metal Bloodthirsers with failcast ones and I've also earmarked £400 of Bugs but we'll not discuss that here ;-)

 

I'm going to the Middle East (shore based) next Monday though until June so I want to get the Redeemer and Termies finished by then so I've reached a good three month stopping point.

 

Might go July Throne of Skulls though if you fancy it and we can get the time off?????

[blackbabyjesus]

Erm, I'm pretty sure I'm off in July, don't deploy again til late September, just an OST & JMC in between, joy! I'll get you on facebook sometime to discuss, save sharing our movements with half the space marine players in the world.

[blackbabyjesus]

As promised, here's part 2 of my LPC vow... the 5 man sternguard squad, photograph is iffy at best, don't have space to set up all the lights here at the moment, as soon as I get a bigger table for my lightbox I'll be sure to take some better ones!

Also, progress is being made on the contemptor:

The grey looks nothing like that, sadly when I corrected the white balance on the picture photoshop decided to amplify all the noise massively (ISO400, bad light :huh: ), so it looks way more red? It's actually charadon granite, so more brown-grey than red, as with the sternguard I'll take a decent photo when I have more space!

[Chapter Master Kanithon]

I've just gone through your whole thread and your Scorpions are amazing, I've always liked their scheme and background and have always had the intention of starting an army of them and because of this thread I can feel my wallet starting to cry!

 

One question though, where did you get the magazine drug that you've used on the combi-melta?

 

Cheers!

[blackbabyjesus]

the magazines for combi weapons/sternguard awesomeness are from the wonderful zinge industries ( www.zinge.co.uk ). Cheap stuff and every single cast I received was perfect.

[blackbabyjesus]

Soo, contemptor done, and with it my LPC vow fulfilled, booyah!

The more astute among you may notice that the basing scheme has changed here, I've ditched the GW snow 'flock' (as frankly, it's not all that good!) and replaced it with bicarbonate of soda (55p for 200g, cheapest non free basing material EVER). The snow effect is MUCH more believable now, if a little more fragile than before. With the old grey bases I don't think this particular style of snow would look all that great, so I've switched the base colour to an earthy brown with a few tufts of weedy looking grass (army painter highland tufts, if you're wondering) adds a little more visual interest and provides a little more differentiation from the model I feel. The rest of the army is mid-way through being rebased, had to completely scour every single base this afternoon as there was no way to just remove the snow, so it's a big job! Thankfully the only model damaged in the process was the ever unlucky captain, who lost a bit of paint on the bottom of his cloak and some from his feet... all fixed now though.

Anyhoo, here's the pictures, I'll chuck up an LPC groupshot later in the week/next week when project-rebase is complete.

(oh, and the snow isn't really yellow, again, white balance issues with camera and mixed lighting! it's actually pure white, like driven snow)

[blackbabyjesus]

LPC Vow complete!

There's the group shot of everything I pledged to complete, project rebase is also done and my army is looking mighty fine with the new mud/snow look.

Have also added a bit of 'snow' to the bottom of everyone's greaves to make them look a little more like they've been traipsing through snow rather than floating above it, oh and I've added a bit to the tanks too!

Next up: A pair of razorbacks, one for the sternguard (will be suitably blinged up) and one for tactical squad 2.

[tomsev]

amazing stuff there i must say... ;) ;) ;)

would love to see the whole army in a group pic, and the captain with the storm shield...

[The_Chaplain]

Has any progress been made on the bike chaplain?

[Rogan]

BBJ, I'm really impressed.

Not only because of the quality of your characters, but also because you managed to sneak-attack-impress me.

I was browsing through this entire thread, spoiled by your awesome interpretation of Sevrin Loth (am I the only one to think they mess up this name everytime they write it?) and thinking to myself:

Great stuff, but somehow... he's omitting the highlighting phase.

And then...

came this:

Man, this is awesome!

The brightness of the colours and the flawless darkness of the black... Sheesh!

Want s'more!

I have one small point of criticism, though: ya nasty old man didn't write anything on the purity seals! :cuss

Thanks for always commenting my stuff and... happy painting or whatever they say these days xD

[blackbabyjesus]

Wow, seems I've neglected this thread quite a lot! In short, i've done more or less nothing for this army since the contemptor was finished, have assembled two HB razorbacks, which are now ready for priming, but that's all.

 

No progress on the bike chaplain I'm afraid, while it's a cool model it doesn't really fit into any of the lists I've been playing recently so he's on the back burner until I run out of things to paint/get bored of grey or gold.

 

Whole Army shot is something I'm really keen to do, though my lightbox is only 20" across... so it'd be a challenge. There's a games club near me with some awesome boards though, so I may pop down to there with my camera etc some time.

 

Thanks for the kind words Rogan, the troops/grunts are very much speedpaints, hence the lack of noticeable highlighting. They're drybrusged with adeptus battlegrey and astronomican grey so in person there's a bit more definition to them but it gets lost in photos. The captain model I kinda pulled out the stops a little bit for, I really got into painting him and decided that he'd have the same amount of time as a whole squad would normally! Storm shield for him is still in my bitz box, I'll get round to painting that once my Nipplewing army is complete.