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Trixie's Alpha Legion


Trixie

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Hey all, back in the hobby after 17 years, decided to do some marines and Alpha Legion was my flavour of choice. Aiming to hark back to my childhood with a force featuring some mk VI marines and the Deimos pattern forge world predators.

 

First things first though, had to get some practise in, so I picked up a Betrayal at Calth box and spent some time clipping/filing. Finally got paint on it today. Going with black primer then vallejo air steel, then the tamiya clear blue and clear green method.

 

Here are some WIP from the blue stage I reached earlier. (first picture I have ever taken of any models so bear with me, first marine I painted since the last millennium xD)

 

They are a whole lot less blue and a whole lot more metallic in person. Hopefully that will come through in the pictures when they are 100% completed.

 

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

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey all, got a bit more done tonight. A lot of marines from 2 x Calth boxes are up to the 'silver stage'. Not the most exciting progress but finally much of the gruntwork is done.

 

Here is an example below, left to right is black, then vallejo air gunmetal, then vallejo air steel and finally vallejo air aluminium.

 

http://i.imgur.com/JMNfn5B.jpg

 

Hopefully tomorrow I can add the blue to a few squads of these guys and start thinking about the details and handbrush stuff.

 

Laters all :smile.:

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Couple more WIP shots here. I managed to get a bit of blue on quite a few squaddies tonight.

 

Here is the first coat of Tamiya clear blue.

 

http://i.imgur.com/fG3FBaP.jpg

 

I went over the first coat with a second layer which resulted in this.

 

http://i.imgur.com/ts57r6P.jpg

 

Strangely they look quite green in this picture, yet they are completely blue irl.....I suck at photos :P.

 

Probably give them another pass with the clear blue tomorrow and then start shading with Drakenhof Nightshade and start on the details.

 

Laters all :)

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  • 1 month later...

Ridiculously slow progress for me because I went through 2 bottles of dettol trying to find the 'right' scheme. Finally I've had enough dettol burns to last a lifetime and I'm just gonna crack on with the painting.

 

Another WIP here hopefully actually have a model finished tonight xD

 

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

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It's good to hear that you think the blue is going in the right direction hushrong, as it was yours, Betrayers, kizzdougs and cadmus tyros stuff that I was browsing late at night before committing to the Alphas. 

 

Got another wip here, mostly done but still need the highlights on armour left. Need to attach the bolter and add a base then.

 

http://i.imgur.com/8fFJHYU.jpg    

 

Apologies for the wierd blurry picture. I'm just keen to crack on with actual painting and just letting my brothers on the b&c know, that despite a glacial pace my legion is gradually forming :smile.:

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Nice work, looks like the lenses are going to work well with the rest of the scheme.

 

Even if it is a glacial pace it is better than no pace (I know because I'm guilty of this too)

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Looking good, what recipe did you settle on?

 

One thing I found with my alphas, at this stage it may be worth considering a black pin wash (i.e. Just in the recesses). I used 50:50 lahmian medium/nuln oil mix. Be careful to only apply to the recesses, as you will ruin the over finish of the armour if it bleeds onto the plate. It takes time but it's worth it and should add a bit more definition.

 

The other thing I used was a guilliman blue wash, but that changes the texture of the metallic finish and the tone of the blue quite a bit.

 

Cadmus

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The recipe I went for finally was the forge world 9 drops of tamiya clear blue with 1 drop of tamiya clear green as a base.

 

The first issue I had with the Alpha Legion was that everytime I made a batch of the blue/green mix it was always slightly different to the previous batch. To remove this problem I actually poured 9 pots of blue and a pot of green into 1 huge bottle and thinned it 50/50 with tamiya x-20a creating what I call 'treacherous teal' xD. Although clearly I'm not the first to use this scheme as many brothers here have already been using it to great effect.

 

Lenses were black undercoat all over, then khorne red all over, then some random vallejo orange across the bottom third of the lens. Some Yriel Yellow then in the bottom quarter of the lens which flicked up slightly near the nose. Small dot of white near the back corner of a lens to complete. I think it's actually on youtube in tutorial form from GW so again it's nothing I created myself.

 

It's so cool to have comments and likes from the very people whose work got me into this Legion :)

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I do like that painting channel GW set up. I will definitely be using that recipe though as I had been pondering what to do with lenses.

 

Right now I am in a rut painting over the metallic paint. For example I want to paint some shoulder pads black but the GW paint isn't sticking. It's the same for the silver too. I wonder if adding nuln oil wash over the desired parts will make it easier to apply paint. Was wondering if you ran into the same issue.

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100% Agree Cadmus, I went overboard once or twice with the nuln and it ruined the shoulderpads. Made em look grubby which is ok but not the look I wanted, so yeah extra care was needed with the shade detailing.

 

Also yes to hushrong, I too found painting vallejo or gw paint OVER the metallic blue was a lot harder than it should of been. I used a bit of vallejo matt thinner when painting black or silver over the green/blue basecoat. I'm not sure why but it seemed to help the paint adhere better. Could just be that I was bored of painting multiple weak layers and mentally tricked myself into thinking the job was done after switching to thinner medium.

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I feel your pain, there are so many stages to the forgeworld alpha scheme, it's hard to get uniformity. I found painting under different lighting altered the tone, so In bright light I tended over apply the glaze colours. I'm sure it's not that noticeable, but when you are close to a project it can be frustrating. You seem to have found something that works for you, stick with it

 

 

Yeah leadbelcher does not like going over metallic schemes, I tend to base coat the area with vajello air black primer using a detail brush.

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Just a little update here, feverishly working through the tactical marines from 2 x Calth Boxes.

 

Group shot of a bunch of squadies in various degrees of completion.

 

http://i.imgur.com/n8zxslJ.jpg

 

Starting to get a bit of conformity now with the colour of this pain in the arse legion.

 

Hopefully next update will be some 100% completed stuff.

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I haven't done much to my operatives but using nuln oil on the area I want to paint helped a lot. My terminators have black shoulder pads now thankfully.

 

Your alpha legionnaires are coming along splendidly. I do like the conformity in the painting and it does fit their background well. You also have two BaC boxes? Will we be seeing some terminators and contemptors too? I will def be using 15 terminators and I have ten Tartaros that will go AL blue and 5 Cataphractii that may be painted the same way instead of IW colors. I may get the FW chaos book to use some more goodies too...

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Aye I have everything from the 2 calth boxes cut, filed, trimed etc. The two contemptors have had a little body work done in regards with the hip/leg positions. The idea was 100% stolen straight from Cadmus but nothing major will be done until all the tacticals are eventually finished.

 

I've got a couple of rhinos, a deimos predator and a couple of other bits but even though my progress is snail paced, it is definitely methodical....I can't start painting some stuff whilst others aren't really finished. Hope to see more Alphas from the B&C brothers so I can gain some inspiration (steal your ideas).

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Awaiting a delivery of hobby supplies at the moment, so I can't create the bases I want or add my transfers. But I think this squad is finished in terms of brushwork. 

 

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

 

Will try to source some tech that will allow nicer pictures for future updates.

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Looking forward to them getting based! Also wondering if you would maybe post a step by step of how you do the transfers? I have never had luck with them but after getting some tips from Cadmus I want to give them a try.

 

Any plans of converting up your other marines from the Calth sets? Turn some of those mk4 into recon or breachers?

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I'm keeping the rank n file troopers pretty standard, but I will be adding some special sauce to the sgts, which is why my tactical squad is only 10 bolter boys at the moment. I have 10 of the forge world volkite culverins and calivers to make a support and a heavy squad as well as a couple of blisters of headhunters and legion upgrades which I will use to create the captains, librarians, techmarines etc.

 

I went on a bit of a splurge and basically have a whole army in the painting que, 3 rhinos, 1 deimos pred, 1 landraider , 1 landspeeder, 1 javelin landspeeder and the terminators/dreads from 2x calth boxes........ 

 

It's enough to keep me busy all year and will be my first finished and playable army since 1999. Updates will be slow now as I have about 9 months of uni work backed up to the space of 1 month but I'll let you know how the transfers look.

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