Mandragola’s Legio Astorum (and Mortis and stuff)

[Mandragola]

Thanks very much guys. Glad you like my toys.

 

Real life has intruded a bit on my titan painting time, but I ought to be able to get some stuff done over the next few days. I’ve also got to paint up a knight for 40k but I hope to at least get this guy finished this weekend.

[Mandragola]

I had to take a bit of a break from Titans to get an army ready for heat 1 of the UKGT, which was last weekend. I qualified and got nominated for best army, which was great.

 

Now back to the titans. My experiment painting circles and lines on this warlord is now complete. A bit of basing, some kind of personal heraldry and she’ll be done. For now, here’s an extreme closeup.

 

These really big photos are so unforgiving! They show up loads of little issues that aren’t really visible to the naked eye, but which I’ll have to fix. Like you can see how the star on the shield had to be stuck there from two bits after all the transfers on her own sheet disintegrated. Grr!

 

 

 

 

I've added some heat bloom to the volcano cannon and some soot to the quake. I think it makes sense to differentiate between the different kinds of gun.

 

 

 

Heat bloom added to a few other lasers. On the top one I tried out contrast paint for the first time. Wraithbone went in, then azurite (or whatever it's called) blue and then a line of white. What do you think?

 

 

As ever, C+C very welcome please.

[Fajita Fan]

Pics aren’t loading right for me on my phone or iPad, I’ll try again later on my PC. I can see flames on the missiles and those look cool 

[Mandragola]

Pics aren’t loading right for me on my phone or iPad, I’ll try again later on my PC. I can see flames on the missiles and those look cool 

 

Oh that's weird. I hope it worked. They aren't small pictures I'm afraid.

[Fajita Fan]

They’re loading now and they look AWESOME. Love the flames and can you get a closeup of the glowing barrel? I was undecided about doing that.

[Marshal Vespasian]

These look great.

I am looking for legio colour schemes right now and guess what scheme just got a huge boost in my mind?

 

The circles with dots on them (I guess they are star charts in universe?) are freehand, yes? If so, mad props

[Mandragola]

Yeah it’s freehand. Straight lines aren’t as difficult as I’d expected. The main trick I learned is that it takes stages to get it looking good. The lines are really messy at first and that’s ok. The objective is to get an even coat and the pattern right. You can come back with the blue and tidy them up. I made the lines a fair bit thinner with the blue.

[Rabenga]

The astorum geometric designs are awe inspiring. Truly commendable paint job sir.

[Mandragola]

Ok well looks like I’ve got a few more titans to paint lines on then.

 

A month or so ago I recorded a video with the 30k channel. It’s now online at https://the30kchannel.com/video/legio-mortis-vs-legio-astorum/. It requires a subscription to view but there’s an option for a free trial if you want.

 

Loads of pics from the game on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/227750470901357/posts/880372792305785?s=1046138396&sfns=mo

[Gillyfish]

Fantastic work on the titan! I particularly like the shading and highlights. The painted designs are also excellent.

[Prefect Apollyon]

These are coming along brilliantly!

[Mandragola]

Thanks guys. I’ve been at Glastonbury for the week so have done no work at all. Will hopefully get back to it now.

[Master Ciaphas]

Hail!

 

Those Legio Astorum God-Engines are truly a sight to behold! Loving them. I think I will try to copy those astronomy inscriptions on my own Warlord engines.

 

Keep up the excellent work!

 

Faithfully,

Master Ciaphas

[thewarriorhunter]

Just got done speed scrolling through your PLOG. Your painting is amazing! I love the trees that you added to the Warhound bases because they do so much to give a sense of scale to the titans. The sand table was a really neat idea as well.

 

I really appreciate your Warhound's poses. I want to make mine look dynamic and seeing how you positioned their legs was nice to see. I'm currently trying to figure out if I can have one leaping off the side of a rock face.

[Mandragola]

Thanks a lot. I hope to get some trees on the base of this warlord tonight, so we’ll see how that looks.

 

In terms of how to go about posing titans, my advice is to look at a bunch of images or maybe videos of creatures or people running first. Before I built my running warlord titan I looked at a lot of images of big rugby players running, for example. For a warhound you might be better off looking at something like an ostrich, or more likely something chunkier like a T-rex – though of course you’ll struggle to see real video of one of those!

 

Opinions vary on just how athletic titans should appear to be. We do hear about them running at times – even the warlords. But I do sometimes see titans in unlikely poses. With warhounds the biggest issue for me is when it looks like they’re falling over, with their centre of gravity far too far forward.

 

I don’t know if it’ll work to have a hound jumping off a cliff. I could see a problem if it results in a hound that’s significantly taller though, once you include the base. But other than that I think you just need a decent running pose with the back foot at the edge of the cliff and the front one raised.

 

Warhound legs and feet are one piece, so you’ve got some work ahead of you with a scalpel and green stuff. It definitely looks better if you angle the toes on the raised foot down as well – for all titans, which is easier to do for hounds than the bigger guys. Warlords and reavers are otherwise easier to pose due to their articulated legs, but they can trip you up when you discover that the armour plates don’t allow as much range of movement as the skeleton does.

 

I’d probably recommend making one of the warhounds straight out of the box first to get to know the kit. But if you want to do more than that then just go for it and have fun.

[Mendi Warrior]

Very sensible advice, I used a similar approach too 

There was one jumping warhound on Instagram a while ago, steeplechase style. The guy used a flying stand. Found the link again: https://www.instagram.com/khazad4207/?hl=fr

[Chaeron]

Looks incredible - I can see why your other army was nominated Mandragola!

[Mandragola]

Ultima Lux walks. Blaaarp! 

 

 

 

 

Personal insignia design robbed off some 40 year old album cover.

 

Tree should have got out of the way. Has only itself to blame.

 

Lovely bit of fake mud this.

 

Family photo of my finished titans - which is an annoyingly small proportion of my actual titans...

 

This guy is next on the production line. Note crappy looking lines on shoulders, and more or less finished ones on legs.

[noigrim]

I like the ww1 bases

[Fajita Fan]

No joke, those are really unique and make the bright armor really pop.

[thewarriorhunter]

I love the bases and the grime you applied to your model to make it really come alive.

[Sherrypie]

Joining the choir, bases make the models' bright colours really jump out and make you think these are not mudstrewn little men you'd expect in those conditions, these are bold gods of war striding forwards horns blaring.

 

Excellent work on the deep blues and white markings.

[Mandragola]

Joining the choir, bases make the models' bright colours really jump out and make you think these are not mudstrewn little men you'd expect in those conditions, these are bold gods of war striding forwards horns blaring.

 

Excellent work on the deep blues and white markings.

 

Thanks. I’m really glad you think that, as it’s exactly what I was intending. I wanted to do something that showed the titans’ scale, and how unreasonable it would be to introduce them into a conventional war between infantry and tanks. I also wanted to show just a completely destroyed landscape to represent the devastation of the Heresy war. And there’s just something about having mud on a model that makes it seem like it’s really there in that place, and hasn’t just been photoshopped in.

[thewarriorhunter]

Thanks. I’m really glad you think that, as it’s exactly what I was intending. I wanted to do something that showed the titans’ scale, and how unreasonable it would be to introduce them into a conventional war between infantry and tanks. I also wanted to show just a completely destroyed landscape to represent the devastation of the Heresy war. And there’s just something about having mud on a model that makes it seem like it’s really there in that place, and hasn’t just been photoshopped in.

 

 

I think your last point is spot on. I want to do snow bases for my Legio and I'm planning on building it up around their feet to make it seem like they've sunk into the ground. I'm also toying with the idea of adding some to the models to make it look like they're in a storm and snow is building up on them. I think adding that small element of the environment to the model really helps give credibility to it belonging in the environment you're building around it.

[Mandragola]

Snow on a titan could be really interesting. I considered it for these but decided on mud instead. I don’t know if it would settle on an active engine, which would be moving a lot and probably be quite hot in places. In seriously cold conditions you might get quite a covering on the armour plates that are away from the body though. It could look great settled along the ridges of the eagles and places like that.