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Raven Guard 5th Company - New Year, Fresh... Faces?


Mercay

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Hello everyone!

I made a thread back in 2013 introducing the start of what I hoped would be my first ever completely finished army.

I've been in the hobby one way or another for most of my 23 years, but I've never managed to stick to one project and see it to its completion due to either lack of motivation or just life getting in the way.

That is of course exactly what happened to that project aswell, or rather, it's been in hibernation until just recently when I felt the motivation growing again.

I had built most of the army back then but only managed to paint one test model before I ran out of motivational juice. Over the last year I've been slowly tearing it down and reassembling it, weaving in parts from new releases all along to hopefully give each marine his own character, without going too crazy with conversions!

While I do realise that a prime reason for burning yourself out is having a massive pile of unpainted models laying around, I want to be able to use it in battle sooner rather than later and I would rather play with unpainted models than not play at all! :tongue.:

Anyway, I'd better throw in a picture just about now before this wall of text becomes too long...

http://i.imgur.com/NOJoJND.jpg

So, I know the pretty significantly weathered look isn't very popular with everyone, but I wanted to convey the feeling that they've been on the ground for a good while, using their Raven Guard sneakyness and guerilla tactics and whatnot.

I'm pretty happy with the result so far, but there is definitely room for improvement. This was my first ever time simulating paint chipping and using a sponge so the consistency across the models isn't quite there yet, but with practice comes perfect (or closer to it anyway). :biggrin.:

Some individual shots:

http://i.imgur.com/Kl7A5Jf.jpg

Brother-Sergeant Tyko Mounek

This is the first squad of the company, so is Tyko the first sergeant? Or is it the sergeant of the command squad that would be counted as first? Details, details...

http://i.imgur.com/neXKeeR.jpg

Brother Orban Nex

http://i.imgur.com/ATKQoIt.jpg

Brother Zuka Katari

How do you even make leather look worn?

http://i.imgur.com/tumDwfo.jpg

Brother Kordan Macto

Speaking of the consistency of the paint chipping, it's a bit more blotchy on Kordan here than the others, which is a bit annoying :/

http://i.imgur.com/R2GmONi.jpg

Brother Vargus Fel

So, that's it for now. Any criticism and ideas are more than welcome! Hopefully my motivation will last longer than the last time, although I suppose I'm already 4 models ahead of the old record... :tongue.:

Oh and I also need to recognise and thank @SCC for giving me the inspiration to do Raven Guard in the first place, his army is absolutely glorious and I will strive to match that gloriousness to the best of my ability.

For Corax and the Emperor!

Edited by Mercay
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They look sweet man! Dark, gritty and worn plus the lenses are really well done.

 

Plans for the future with rhw Raven Guard?

 

Thank you! My plan at the moment is having playable 1500 and 1850 lists and the models I currently have assembled are the following:

 

1 captain

3 x 10 man tactical squads with rhinos and/or drop pods (although I suppose drop pods would make no sense for an army that's already been on the ground a while)

1 x 10 man assault squad

1 x 5 man devastator squad 

1 x 5 man vanguard veteran squad (lighting claws galore)

4 x 5 man scout squads, one of them with snipers, one with boltguns, one with shotguns and one with ccws, variety!

 

What I still need to get in order to get the 1850 list completed: 

 

Either 3 x 3 scout bikes, a land speeder storm and a razorback OR two whirlwinds and three landspeeders.

 

 

Excellent work. As for making leather look worn, paint some pale yellow "cracks" on the leather, to show where it's worn and torn; the edges (where stitches would be) should look most worn.

 

Thank you, I will have to try this out!

 

Cool.  There's an army I can respect, one that wears its trials proudly

 

Thanks, hopefully I can respect it enough to actually finish it this time :sweat:

 

They look great to me. I've weathered my Raven Guard too for the same reason. Mine doesn'the look nearly as good though.

 

Thanks man! I had a look at yours and would say that your highlights are maybe a bit too bright? I use a mix of eshin gray and abaddon black for the first broad highlight and then a very fine highlight of pure eshin gray. Easy and simple to keep me from losing my sanity.

 

Lovely.

 

Thanks a bunch!

Edited by Mercay
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This is Corax Approved!

 

That's what we strive for, thank you!

 

Very nice!

 

How did you do the bases?

 

I bought the cheapest cork trivets I could find, something like this. Just tear them up and add some fine sand around it and you got instant-ish rocky terrain!

 

Painted them up with a base of rhinox hide, some agrax earthshade and then lighter and lighter drybrushing of mournfang brown, gorthor brown and baneblade brown.

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The second half of squad Mounek is finished! 

 

http://i.imgur.com/tuMHe9X.jpg

 

I really do need to try to make a basic lightbox...

 

http://i.imgur.com/9piFLGF.jpg

 

Brother Igor Volk

 

http://i.imgur.com/QoEaeIr.jpg

 

Brother Brabus Solaro

 

http://i.imgur.com/beMdlEI.jpg

 

Brother Sesa Torovac

 

http://i.imgur.com/ZYVIK2N.jpg

 

Brother Adrion Tev

 

http://i.imgur.com/6YAsyWa.jpg

 

Brother Gaz Jiralan 

 

The brown of their leather straps and holsters look almost black in these photos, quite a bit darker than in real life!

 

Anyway, now that the tactical squad is finished I've started to work on the first of four scout squads: 

 

http://i.imgur.com/uN6heDn.jpg

 

Very early progress on him so far, but I'm a bit split on what colour his boots and gloves should be. Brown like the other leather straps and pouches will be, or black like the rest of his armour. Any ideas?

 

I also got an urge to quickly paint up three teleport homers as objective markers, looks pretty neat I think!

 

http://i.imgur.com/uN9TNCt.jpg

 

Oh and a shot of the whole tactical squad together: 

 

http://i.imgur.com/KEHSEKB.jpg

 

That's it for now, thanks for looking!

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This is great. So much so I think you should replicate this in the RG subforum so it doesnt get lost amongst all the other WiPs! ;)

 

I know youre still painting the scout, one critique (and I'm nit picking because this is awesome), your skin tone on the scout seems a bit dark compared to RGs typical pale skin tones.

As for the gloves I did mine Eshin grey with a nulin wash. Offers enough of a contrast to the carapace without being too standout-ish.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've finally managed to finish and take some pictures of my first scout squad!

 

http://i.imgur.com/9LwgPkx.jpg

 

A bit better lighting in these pictures than the last ones.

 

http://i.imgur.com/Gz6H3Gc.jpg

 

Sergeant Hastor Cuda

 

http://i.imgur.com/JrWzb8M.jpg

 

Initiate Lukas Hex

 

http://i.imgur.com/V4g81nh.jpg

 

Initiate Kato Hirakou

 

http://i.imgur.com/q4glZjf.jpg

 

Initiate Argan Chideo 

 

http://i.imgur.com/y5Bs06t.jpg

 

Initiate Dester Targa 

 

I'm very proud of myself for managing to paint two whole squads!

 

For Scouts, my suggestion is black ceramite plates on brown leather boots (see steel-toed boots) and gloves. Another idea would be tan boots and gloves with black stripes, i.e., a tiger-stripe camouflage pattern.

 

Thank you for the input! I considered both options but in the end I decided to go for fingerless gloves (I don't think I've seen it before, but I think it works well!) and black leather boots, which are mostly covered up in dust anyway :happy.:

 

This is great. So much so I think you should replicate this in the RG subforum so it doesnt get lost amongst all the other WiPs! :wink:

I know youre still painting the scout, one critique (and I'm nit picking because this is awesome), your skin tone on the scout seems a bit dark compared to RGs typical pale skin tones.
As for the gloves I did mine Eshin grey with a nulin wash. Offers enough of a contrast to the carapace without being too standout-ish.

 

Thank you! Should I just copy all of my posts here and post it there? Never done that before and I'm not sure about the rules, I don't want to be banned for spamming haha

 

Regarding the skintones, that is by far the biggest heresy I am commiting with these dudes in my opinion. I just dont like the extreme paleness described in the fluff. These guys have a more "regular" caucasian tone.

 

My aim is to get it slightly more pale on the next batch, but not too much as to make the difference between the squads too obvious.

 

I'm not very experienced with painting skin and faces at all so I'm still learning a lot as I go on!

 

Oh my, yes. These are great.

 

I love Igor Volk with his pose, gorget and drum magazine.

 

Love the weathering and variety of bits on these guys. Keep it up.

 

Still a big :thumbsup:

 

Ace weathering on these guys; all look to be battered veterans.

 

Absolutely gorgeous! Just how I imagine Raven Guard.

 

A really nice bunch of crows you have there !
Great job on that tac' squad brother :wink:

 

Thank you all so much!

 

It means a lot to me to be able to post my progress here to recieve feedback, share and perhaps inspire others as I have been inspired!

 

Next up: first five of an assault squad, a librarian and another scout squad.

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Sure just copy the posts into a new WiP thread there!

You can also discuss any of your battle reports there as well as bounce ideas and paint schemes off the rest of the friendly Frater! :)

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