Brother Christopher

Firstly, cool conversion and nice work so far. Regarding the power/force weapons, I like all of them. However, for the GK colour scheme, I'd either go with the blue or green. At least in the photos, the green looks very subtle. I think you can't go wrong with any of these, so that's something. However, it surely doesn't help with finalising the decision.

Not being familiar with 'recent' Necron models, I had to look Szeras up. Your conversion, particularly the legs, is quite seamless. The head swap works well, so does the extra 'armour.' on the back.

@gaurdian31 That's what I'm trying to do. Although, this is probably the first project that really got me thinking about painting as a hobby. Before, with my Black Templars, I've been fixed on finishing the project and keeping to a more or less uniform style in a reasonable time. With these purple guys, I find myself thinking and planning way more than I did about what I want to do with them. Presently, I want them to be my modern Templars: largely painted in this faux-boxart style. After experimenting with painting Primaris for the previous batch of models (including sponge painting), I returned to using brushes exclusively. There are also some ancillary ideas, realisations and plans - all a result of this week's soul-searching. Overall, this has been a very fruitful week hobby-wise. The new thing that 'clicked' into place in my mind is that I realised that I want these models to be intended for gaming. 1. They should look nice at a distance (and the highlighted edges help with that), when looked at from all angles. 2. There's going to be a fair bit of them - I don't really want to spend more than 5 hours per model when there's 50-60 in the queue. 3. I want to get back to scratch building and I want to have some custom-made vehicles for these guys; I have to account for non-painting activities in the army project as a whole. With these principles in mind, I am now set on painting them to a standard that's pushing beyond what I can do quickly and comfortably, but not my a lot. I still want to find shortcuts and fixes here and there. And with these melta guys, who are a direct follow-up of the 'success' with the Champion, I think I've found the sweet spot. While not completely ready, I really wanted to share my progress: Here's my first attempt at painting the heavy support symbol. It turned out that it was more tricky than I expected but I feel I'm quickly getting the hang of it: Here's an example of me being overzealous. I thought that it'd be a cool idea to add a yellow stripe on the gun without realising that it'll blend with the scroll thingy. Now, I think I've managed to separate the yellow stripe from the tan ribbon... but yeah, it took some fixing and I should've thought about it sooner. I'll follow up with the same 'mistake' on the other two guns. And here's a close-up on the face. I think it turned out pretty nice, although, it looked better without the eyebrows. I'm still not sure why I bother to keep on trying to get eyebrows right - it usually comes with a detriment to the face but... I kinda want them to have them. Maybe I should google a tutorial or something: perhaps there's some easy fix of other thing that I'm missing. All in all, I'm quite stoked about these. At the end of the day, I'm not 100% sure about the metallic finish to the shoulder pads, backpacks and helmets but I think I'll reserve my judgement till they're properly finished. *** On the subject of heraldry and/or colours. Over the months, with your help, I've been developing and redeveloping ideas for markings for my Chapter. As it stand right now, I've decided on the following custom markings: - Base chapter colour: Purple - Company designation: Colour of the emblems on shoulder pads, as well as the stripe on top of the backpack. - Squad designation: battle role symbol on the left greave. - Battle role designation: Colour of the shoulder pads, shoulder-pad trims, as well as the round element on the backpack; non-battle-line troops also wear helmets with a different colour. Battleline: purple shoulder pads, white trim. Fire support: gunmetal silver pads, black trim; gunmetal silver helmets. Close support: black pads, -undetermined trim-; black helmets. 1st Company Veterans: white arms (including shoulder pads), white helmets. HQs: some variation of the Veterans' livery (perhaps white arms but purple pads?) All sergeants wear green helmets. - Special formations and roles (Vanguard marines, Champions, Techmarines) may use custom markings, as need be. In the end, I've decided to reduce the number of colours and focus on the more 'boring' combinations (white, black, silver, gold) - while it perhaps won't be as 'fun' as I wanted it to be, limiting variants of the livery should help with keeping the project more uniform in the long run and, perhaps, will make it a bit more mature (i.e. I won't regret the different arm colours and four variations of the scheme in two years' time).

This sounds fun. My experience with 40k has always been limited to Space Marines (and now their upsized versions) so having bits from different ranges seems like an exotic notion. But I get it. I think that the way you engage with the hobby is extremely cool, keeping you busy in so many ways: planning projects and doing online research or searching for inspiration is very engaging; looking for proper bits and getting around to executing an idea is fun; seeing things come to fruition is very rewarding; failing to realise an idea might be frustrating, but might also be rewarding if you decide to look for a fix/solution. And then there's the painting bit (which sometimes can be the most underwhelming part of the process!) I don't want to end this with something obviously lame, but I will: keep it up. Your work is inspiring and fun to follow.

Thanks for the positive feedback! Particularly about the reassurance about the choice of colour for my fire support guys. This week has been... strange. Mostly because of work. In order to combat the time-consuming mundaneness, I surprisingly spent a lot of time doing actual painting progress. This has taken the time from other things, like being online, though. I managed to finish the armour and do the base metallics for all three melta marines. I also did some soul-searching. I'm very glad you like him! I appreciate the comment about the combination of panel and edge highlighting. This ties neatly into my soul-searching. During short breaks between chores, I did some Googling in an attempt to research alternate painting techniques and find some inspiration to perhaps change the way I paint my minis. And I think I meandered a bit but turned the full circle. For some time now, I'm slightly enamoured with the idea of trying to do volumetric highlighting or focus on panel "highlighting" by properly blending paints so that the painted-on lights and shadows imitate reflections from a single light source. I'm not particularly sure whether I'm using the right terms but I'm considering trying to 1up my painting and do some 'pro-style' models that are more like display pieces than game pieces. Putting aside my skills threshold (i.e. I doubt whether I'd be able to pull off blending lights and shadows and whatnot), in the end I'm not sure if I really need that: it might just be me wanting to try something new. The conclusion I've come to is this: in the near future, I'll need to decide whether I want paint an army or whether I want to paint miniatures. Right now, I'm leaning towards the former - I think I'll want to stick to painting models that will look nicely in a display cabinet and - hopefully, one day - on the tabletop. And for this purpose, the style I'm developing for my Purple Marines works pretty well. I see it as a bastardised 'Eavy Metal wannabe style. Depending on the complexity of models, I manage to get single marines painted in between 2 and 5 hours. I think it's reasonable. The thick edge highlights help in defining the details and my attempts at making colour gradients make the large flat surfaces look more interesting. Does it make sense to make armour darker at the bottom and lighter towards the top? Not always and, therefore, not really. But it's simple enough and doesn't require much though, knowledge of (art?) theory, nor skill. Come to think of it, I've reached pretty obvious realisation about painting styles. The 'Eavy Metal/boxart style is very striking and aims to market the miniatures, make them look nicely from all angles and on the tabletop and feels achievable. The other styles I have in mind look way more time-consuming and appear a bit prohibitive. Additionally, it seems that the minis look good from certain angles - something that's great for posting photos of them online or displaying them in a cabinet, but seems a bit problematic on the tabletop. There's also the real-life/hobby time factor involved. While the dream of doing 'pro-level' paintjobs of single miniatures appears to be alluring, in the end I find painting squads of Space Marines (instead of individual Space Marines) more pragmatic and fun due to potential of painting more different things. On top of that, I do like my Space Marines but I think that even the coolest of SM models are quite boring. I'll try some of the pro-stuff in other projects. Or maybe attempt at a 5-6 model squad of fancy marines in the future. (There's also a chance that if I'm in the mood, I'll sidetrack my melta marines and do 1 'fancy' test model over the weekend, who knows.)

Another impressively insane thing here. Strangely enough, I didn't take a mental note of that dread. The paint job is great. I dig your colour scheme. The shield and sword are appropriately large. The additional potbelly armour based on bits from what appears to be a Leviathan kit is also creative. While it's not my cup of tea, I respect the idea and execution. He also reminds me of something or someone but I can't really put my finger on what it is. But I get the vibes of a grizzled, old knight. What's your next project?

The apothecary is a very brave conversion: using a lot of expensive kits. But it's shaping up to be something absolutely amazing. Looking at these kinds of projects is unhealthy for me, though. It makes me want to give proper kitbashing a try - something I vowed not to do. Also, the guy 'jumping' over the wall is a nice sculpt. It seems that the designers managed to improve Phobos armour, too.

I agree with Tallarn Commander, enough said. Do you have these bits from kits intended for different projects you do, or do you but them specifically for this projects?

Huh, I can't believe I've never complimented your Slaaneshi-pattern camo capes. That's an unbelievable oversight. It was a creative idea that was excelently executed. The choice of colours and 'density' of the symbols painted on the capes makes them quite striking: clearly aesthetically-driven (fitting for the followers of Slaanesh), but at the same time the earthy tones give a very grounded, utilitarian feel. The converted, chaosified Gatling gun I also pretty dope. I like the attention to details: the use of some oldschool flamer (together with the fuel tanks mounted on the side), the plasticard shield and extensions and the top-cover with the chaos symbol. I'm slightly concerned with the green stuff bit: it might just be the photo, but it looks a bit rough/uneven. If that's the case, it should be fairly easy to to fix with some filing or adding more GS.

I have had an extended break and missed a lot of what you're doing but CLEARLY you're still going at it. The walker based on the Stormtalon is definitely something I'd like to see finished. I'm curious where the tides of hobby take you. I think that you should go with something based on the second photo: The added bulk in the back really helps the model. In the other configurations, I feel, the 'waits' is too flimsy..

I understand the frustrations all too well. Having said that, I dig the paint scheme - the colour choices, as well as the decision which sections to paint with what colour. The thin stripes, with the runes, extending to the top and bottom of the rear hatch are a particularly noce though. I actually like the texture a lot. It's not a style that I'm most familiar with but it looks striking.

That's a very clean paintjob on the Blood Angel. The face is great (and seems easy to paint, too!) and the colour for the base works well, too. My only observation/criticism at this point concerns the edges on the leather pouches but I assume that's due to the model being in the WIP stage.

Hah. Stellar work. It feels exotic to see your skill and creativity applied to Xenos, but - unsurprisingly - the results are consistently good. The GS additions are great. Frankly, if it were not for the before photos, it would be impossible to tell that the scarabs are actually GS-moulded bits. I'd like to chime in on the naming process but I guess I don't have enough creative fibres in me. Given the context of the theme of your Marines, the face and hood of the Lord, I'd probably name him Skeletor :P

More of the same here, really, but just slightly different. I have a confession to make. Interestingly, for the first time in my whole life I got actually annoyed at something (else) while painting. Instead of taking a break from painting, I continued doing so in the most angry manner possible. This happened while I was doing the edge highlights - a process that requires precision and focus: things that were at that particular moment in short supply. The result was quite dreadful (similar to what I could achieve just after I started painting all those years ago) - the lines were thick and uneven, quite rubbish really. This is still visible on the ball-thingies on the backpack. Having found myself in this situation, I decided to continue and modify my painting process - I applied a generous amount of a wash (I mixed a black wash with some dark purple paint) to get the recesses and some initial shading and this mix somewhat helped dull the edge highlights. Then, already calm, I applied the second, finer line of highlights and proceeded with refining them, as well as doing some more shading on the armour plates. In order to make sure what I ended up with (that looked pretty great to the naked eye), I took control photos of the model... and the result is pretty great. I'd even wager saying this: the highlights appear to be some of the best ones I've painted. Who would've thought that (zeal and) fury will actually lead me to victory. A byproduct of a fit of anger just might have resulted in me finding a somewhat more pleasant way of getting more gradient onto the larger armour plates and achieving finer lines that don't require as much focus as they usually require. I think I'll experiment with this technique on the three melta marines but I'm optimistic and think that I just might adjust my workflow. Also, I find these Angry LinesTM somewhat easier to control than ones achieved by drybrushing (a shortcut that I use for my Firstborn Templars). EDIT: I should probably mention that it seems that this will be my paint scheme for my fir support dudes: gunmetal shoulder pads, helmets and backpack tops. I'm also surprised how promising it is: I was afraid to mix metallics with the rest of the scheme but it's quite okay, isn't it? After doing my recon marines and champion, I decided to keep the coloured arms to veterans and HQs only (so white). Right now, I sort of feel that the most recent idea would add too much variety to the force as a whole.