# [Commission] Averland Empire army



## Sigur

Hey there, this is my latest army commission - an Empire army from Averland (i.e. black-and-yellow guys who serve under a knifewielding nutcase).


Here's pictures of the first part of the army. The mainstray is yet to arrive.




















And here's a picture of the testmini I did:









I don't paint these at top level of course. Hope you'll follow along as this army grows and help me with some feedback.


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## KjellThorngaard

I really dig that captain. I like the subtle blending and highlights. It is nicely done. I will watch this thread for sure.


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## The Wraithlord

Nice work, cleanly painted.


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## Djinn24

Oof black and yellow, rough mix, will be watching this one.


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## Oldenhaller

I did an averland bloodbowl team called the mootstompers with halfling heads as balls and a halfling in half (quaterling...?) for the turn marker - have always thought of doing an empire army to match would be cool. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

-O


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## Sigur

@KjellThorngaard: Thanks and welcome to the thread. 

@TheWraithlord: Many thanks for dropping by and the compliment. 

@djinn24: Yeah. The yellow I see as a nice challange (haven't painted whole armies with much yellow in them so far) but all the black is a little daunting. 

@Oldenhaller: The quarterling made me chuckle.  Thanks for the input.


Okay, an update finally. I was pretty tied up with weekend stuff yesterday so didn't get much done then. Today I got more painting done. 



















To be honest, I never expected these state troops to have so many details on them. You absolutely don't seem them at first but these guys really have loads of of stuff on them. This slows down the progress immensely and they take longer than I planned. 

This is the first time I work with the new State Troops. Here's a few observations: 

.) Loads of details, as mentioned above. No head options. This is the main downer to me. Some of you may know that the Army I did in fall of 2010 was Space Wolves so maybe I'm a little spoilt in that regard though. As for the overall design, I see that they really wanted to go for a look that resembles late 30 years war soldiers. Some of them have no shoes, they have a very morbid touch and party are overloaded with (probably looted) stuff (knifes mostly). I'm okay with that but honestly, there is a serious lack of puffy arms and impressive trousers amongst their ranks. Not too fond of the new feather design they introduced with these minis. The faces range from okay to terrible. Kit options are very satisfying; everything's there.

.) The Volley Gun is a nice kit; nothing special. I liked the earlier designs better though.

.) The Outriders kit is very good. Head options, all weapon options there and some additional stuffs as well and the horses look very good. There was a positive surprise for me - eversince they were relased, I thought that the legs of the riders were molded onto the horses but they aren't. No idea how I made that up. So there's very nicely suited horses for 40k Roughriders.

So that's all the news for now. See you tomorrow (I think).


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## KjellThorngaard

> To be honest, I never expected these state troops to have so many details on them. You absolutely don't seem them at first but these guys really have loads of of stuff on them. This slows down the progress immensely and they take longer than I planned.


Yup, I found the same thing. Really, what foot slogger carries that much crap into battle? The seven I have painted so far were tedious in the least. I am glad I am not the only one that found them that way. 

Looking good, though, what does the overall list look like that you will be painting?


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## Sigur

Yeah. Lately I've become more and more opposed to too much detail on miniatures. 

Here's the list of minis I'll do for that army: For now it's 2 captains, 2 magicians, 20 greatswords, 20 swordsmen, 10 handgunners, 10 state troops, 8 knights, 5 outriders, 1 volley gun.



*Update*: I finished the first unit of State Troops (I call them that because I never manage to remember how halbardiers are actually spelled in English) and the Volley Gun's crew. The cannon itself is also almost finished. Tomorrow I will finish the cannon, finish the second character and ...hm...or I save the characters for later when I'm really, really annoyed with hordes of infantry and decide to do a character for a change. Yeah, I guess that sounds better. So! Tomorrow: Finish cannon, put together more infantry! I just spilled half a pot of Coat d'Arms Beige Brown on my table. Good Night.


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## Bane_of_Kings

Nice work, love the Empire so should love this Plog.


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## turel2

Excellent work Sigur.

I love the colour scheme.

That volley gun looks amazing too.


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## Sigur

@Bane_of_Kings: Cheers. Hope you'll like it. 

@turel2: Thank you.


Update!

Finished Volley Gun:










Finished Halbardiers:










WIP Mages (1 light, 1 fire, but I won't tell which is which):


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## Salio

These are great man. I really like the paint scheme, and the highlighting is very crisp. Great work!


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## Sigur

@Salio: Many thanks.  Hope you keep on following this log!

Update! Mages finished:









(Just checking for the level of damage my perception has taken - What or who does the shot of the back of the hat of the light mage remind you of?)


WIP of the second fighty character guy:









Next step: putting together the rest of the minis, then paint everything. Simple, isn't it?


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## Djinn24

Love the wizards. The white one is my favorite.


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## Sigur

@djinn24: Thanks, I'm very pleased with how they turned out. 


Assembled 10 Handgunners and 20 Swordsmen. Goodnight! :yahoo:


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## KjellThorngaard

Really well done minis. Makes me wish i could actually paint...:grin: Can't wait to see more.


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## DrinCalhar

Amazing paint job.


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## Sigur

@KjellThorngaard: Well, you can always hire professionals. 

@DrinCalhr: Cheers. 

Update - just probably not as much as you'd think or I'd hoped to be able to present you with after almost a week so I threw in some pictures of off-topic filler stuff. 










9 WIP greatswords (funny story - you can tell how numb-minded I was last week as I left one of the 10 guys in the priming box. The unit will be 20 men strong so I'll do them in the classic 9 - 11 steps):











I recently found this little scenic base for cannons I acquired along with an empire army this summer and thought it would look nice if I put the Volley Gun on it:









On a completely unrelated note - look what I got here:









:-D When I recently went to my awesome LGS again, one of the guys at the counter held this into my face and jokingly said "You NEED this, right?". It's not like I'm known for being into terrible movies and even less into getting merchandise for terrible movies but for that price I got it. Simply as an entertaining piece and maybe it'll make a funny little present some time.

On a slightly more related note (but still far off topic): I played Death Angel last night; that Space Hulk card game by FFG. Played it with two friends of mine and we found it to be a very exciting and fun game. Not sure about the endless replayability of the thing as, depending on the number of players, it's almost always the same succession of rooms that is generated but it's pretty awesome to just play a cooperative game and for it being a card game, it conveys the feel of Space Hulk pretty well. It was always pretty cool to more or less see the guys I've been painting for months in action (albeit not the miniatures but more just the names). 

So that's that. I'm aiming to finish the Greatswords and the Captain this weekend. After that, it's either more State Troops or some Cavalry.


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## jack

All the models are great but the wizards are my fave. The fire on the fire wizard is immense


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## Bane_of_Kings

Hey, fantastic work .


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## Sigur

@jack: Thanks. 

@Bane_of_Kings: Cheers!



Update!

Finished Greatswords:









As good as finished Captain:









So what's next? Hmm... either Swordsmen, Outriders or more Greatswords. What would you like to see next?


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## Vaz

Oh good god, the cloak on that White Wizard (again, my favourite), and the captain are outstanding. That purple trim really, really sets it off well.

For units, I'd like to see some swordsmen please =).


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## CLT40k

Captain looks great... Fire wizard looks great... the Little Vicar looks great (at least that's what he looks like from the back 

Outstanding work... 

+ rep


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## Sigur

So while I was waiting for votes to pile up on what to do next, I decided to lay the groundwork on these swordsmen:










Because pets always work in project logs, I decided to take some pictures of the most awesome dog in the world but she really hates having photos taken of her:


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## alasdair

Cute! 
Those swordsmen are making a promising start- hope to see some more developments!


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## Sigur

@alasdair: Thanks.  I try to proceed as quickly as possible.




Update! Despite your votes (Outriders would have won), I'm afraid I'll do the Swordsmen first. I don't do this to spite you but for practical reasons. Thing is, there are going to be a total of 10 Outriders now and I chose to do those together rather than splitting them up. I only got the five you saw earlier (assembled and primed) and the other five I'll get in the mail this week if everything goes according to plan.

So for now, it's swordmen. Trying to get State Troops out of the way:



















The first ten (plus one Greatsword) are almost finished, the other 10 just got some base colours and the yellow and black parts finished. Hope you like them. C&Cwelcome as always!


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## Sigur

Just a little update in between. Trying to paint all 20 Swordsmen up to the same level and then finish them all together.










Seeya later!


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## alasdair

Looking good. I likw the cloth highlighting and the skin!


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## Sigur

@Alasdair: Thanks. 



After a little doodling around (or was it oodling?) I actually liked the very first draft for the first freehand banner and went for it. Here's how far I got for now:










This isn't too impressive as posting the finished thing of course but I thought you may like it and I didn't get much else painted today because I was on the road, visiting a modelling store sale, getting the finished Discworld minis to the customer and picking up new commission stuff (Detritus, Dibbler, the Maelstrom Games Chimera and a platoon of Death Korps of Krieg). 

But first - Empire of course.


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## Sigur

Alright, that's the current state of affairs:










This is pretty much the final version. A few more touch-ups and it should be finished.


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## alasdair

Wow thats great! Rep for you my friend! :grin:


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## Sigur

@alasdair: Cheers!


Here's the unit as it is now altogether:


















Starting to get bored. The faces need detail and the drum needs to be done.


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## Sigur

Once more, an update:











I redid the faces a little, painted some teeth and eyes (to an extent. More recent plastic sculpts of human heads have very, very small eyes and overly exposed lower eyelids that make painting eyes a little superfluous, at least on these State Troops.) and added shields of course. The shield emblems aren't quite finished as you can see in the picture.


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## Sigur

Little update on what happened today (apart from a bit more on the Swordsmen).

Outriders horses WIP









Knights horses WIP









10 more Greatwords WIP










I'm really trying to do as much as possible because these days i'm mostly motivated by panic because this monstrosity is leering at me day and night and I know that some time soon I won't be able to resist any more and get it out of its box. And once that happens, the Empire stuff is starting to get delayed...


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## HorusReborn

Nice work on that unit! The yellow is crisp and virtually flawless. The banner is well painted man, great work!


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## Sigur

@Horusreborn: Many thanks, especially for the "flawless". 


Alright, the new Greatswords are finished now, including the banner.



















I really like these minis. Perfectly easy to rank up, no unnecessary details and overall good design. Very good options and good sculpts, especially on the heads. They really make up for the State Troops who are not quite on par with those.

Apart from that, I finished the Outriders horses and did the horses of the knights (sans the barding for now). Next thing on my list would be the Outriders themselves. Problem is, I still have to convert the second champion and have to wait for a bit until I can build him. So I'm doing the Outriders in two steps of five each.

See you soon!


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## The Wraithlord

Wow, this is really turning into a stunning army, can't wait to see the rest of it. What kind of bases are you planning on?


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## Bane_of_Kings

Fantastic work, love the models , Just caught up on this.


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## Sigur

@The Wraithlord: Thanks. Unfortunately the bases don't get any more attention. The client will paint and grass them himself so they fit with the bases on his other armies.

@Bane of Kings: Cheers!




Alright, I didn't get all that much done the past two days but I put together another unit of handgunners and more or less finished the first unit of Outriders:





































I think I'll do an army shot after the Outriders are really finished and then go assembling the Chimera.


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## Bane_of_Kings

Fantastic, love it , keep up the good work. I would love to see an army pic of this when it's done. 

Bane of Kings Out.


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## alasdair

Looking brill! I have always prefered the pistoliers though, I just think those guns are a little ott for cavalry!


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## Sigur

Hey Bane_of_Kings. I'm really mainly just waiting for better weather so I can do an army shot of what's done so far outside.


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## Sigur

Hi again,

sorry, no army shots yet. I've been pretty busy with several things, amongst them working on a unit of some Knights of the Blazing Sun (they're still wip):






























Here's a slightly converted Outriders champion with Hochland Longrifle. I'm really glad I waited for the Steam Tank kit to arrive instead of using the Hochland Longrifle from the Handgunners box):









I got a pretty tight schedule on those so I'll have new updates up very soon!


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## alasdair

Great, love the converted leader especially!


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## Sigur

@alasdair: Thanks! 




A little update on the knights - they're finished:



























I hope you like them. I'll probably add some glossy finish on the horse bardings to see if it fits.


I hope you like everything. See you soon! (C&C welcome as always of course)


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## Vaz

Whoohoo, they look amazing. Although the colours fit, not my favourite Knightly order for Averland, but nun the less, I love your style. +Rep again.


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## Sigur

@Vaz: Thanks.  The order doesn't only fit colourwise, the army's background basically is that some elements of them just returned from a small crusade against Araby (hence some dark-skinned guys amongst the Greatswords) so fluffwise, the order of the Blazing Sun isn't as far off as it usually would be with a regular army of state troops from Averland.

Empire army shots (whole army looking straight into the Arabyian Sun I suppose):




























Oh, there's more army shots in my Empire (Averland) gallery too. 

Hope you like them!


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## Master of Sanctity

Beautiful work Sigur!


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## Bane_of_Kings

Fantastic work .


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## Hammer49

Great work. Particularly like the knights of the blazing sun.


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## Sigur

@Master of Sanctity: Thanks!

@Bane of Kings: Cheers!

@Hammer49: Thank you, Sir. 



Little update on the Empire:









Them's the new guys, a.k.a. "Second batch":
.) Head Engineer on foot
.) Sigmarite Priest
.) 10 Archers
.) 10 Swordsmen
.) 10 Handgunners
.) 5 Outriders
.) Steamtank
.) Mortar 


In the background you can see my snazzy new painting rack. Got the biggest they had and still had to keep my old rack for "backup paints". 

That's it for now, seeya!


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## Hammer49

Do you find changing between the different makes of paint helpful (particular colours), as I have always stuck with GW paints?


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## Sigur

@Hammer49: I tend to try out new paints ranges from time to time, hence the few P3 and Rackham paints amongst my collection. Others I get to supplement the GW paints palette (VMC are incredibly useful for that). Recently, I got more and more Coat d'Arms paints to replace my GW ones. It's a shame really but I simply can't stand these new paintpots. They're by far the most terrible paintpots I've ever seen. It's especially frustrating as I was actually looking forward to having them because I loved the new pots of the washes and Foundation paints. Then they took away two tiny little things for the regular paints (the little lid that keeps the top open and the option to screw the top off. The latter is especially unnerving as they made the labels lower so screwing off the top would have been even easier than on the washes or Foundation paints! :angry: ). Apart from that, they're just impossible to stack and I like stacking paintpots and putting stuff on top. Plus, I just don't believe that there's the same amount of paint in the new pots as there was in the older ones. I know that there should be but I refuse to believe it.


Anyway, after this rant, a little update - Outriders finished:



























I also did as much as I could on the black and yellow uniforms on the rest of the dudes- I try to get as much done as possible on the whole bunch but once I notice that I'm getting annoyed with doing the same thing over and over, I continue painting one single unit (if that makes sense). That way, the overall workload should be reduced with time.


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## Hammer49

The outriders are looking very good. I especially like how you have done the cloaks.
I also think the new paintpots arent as good, and I go through paint much quicker than I ever use to!


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## Sigur

@Hammer49: Cheers. Indeed, I got a delivery that was a mix of old and new pots and to me it really looked like that there was way less paint in the newer ones. Just subjective of course but still.



So these are the units I'm currently working on mainly. Trying to get these guys out of the way quickly. 



















They don't look like much yet but I'm kinda proceeding.


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## Hammer49

Certainly making good progress!
Wish I could paint as quickly so I could clear my backlog.


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## Bane_of_Kings

Wow, some more fantastic work :victory:.


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## Sigur

Thanks everybody. 


Update:






















































Hope you like'em. C&C welcome as always.


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## Hammer49

Those two units look very good. The hats look very good with the feathers.


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## Sigur

@Hammer49: Many thanks!

So I want to finish that second batch of troops this week. That means: 10 Archers, 1 Sigmarite Warpriest, 1 Mortar plus crew, 1 steam tank.


The archers are finished now. I redid a bit more than I had planned but I like them quite a bit now. To make up for the heads on the state troopers, the faces and hats on these archers are terrific! It's a great mix of faces that are very reminicent of artworks of that time, some older faces and one face definately was sculpted after Lenin.  I also love the outfits on those fellas. These little napkin-like things (sorry, can't think of a more proper term at the moment) around their necks and these hats indeed make for a more rural look and like they are simpler variations on traditional regional garbs which I really, really like. Empire armies are supposed to be colourful bunches after all.

Anyway, pictures:










I'm also happy to announce that the mortar crew is finished as well. I like those lads a lot because they have a lot of characters. I did some very small bitz swaps on those guys to make them look a bit different to other gun crews:









...and the last picture today is the first WIP of the Sigmarite warpriest:










Hope you like everything. Comments and critique are highly welcome as always and don't forget to visit Battle Brush Studios on Facebook!


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## aquatic_foible

Exquisite work as usual, sir. You are irritatingly talented! :grin: Great colour scheme, smooth painting...just annoyingly brilliant, in fact.

My one [minor quibble] is that there is, to my eye, too much brown on the Outriders - the cloaks / horses / bridles all merge into one. Personally, I pick out one of those elements [probably the bridles, and saddle straps on the horses] in a different colour - grey / black maybe.

Bear in mind that the above, is me having to look _very_ hard to offer up any constructive criticism. Everything else [as you may have guessed] is awesome! + rep


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## Sigur

@aquatic_foible: Thanks for the comment and bearing an educational signature.  Yeah, I may have overdone the browns a little on the Outriders but they're done now and at least from the front, they look a bit more balanced.  I wanted to make the coats look heavy and weathered because Outriders are ...well, "out" a lot if I remember correctly.

Very quick update - Mortar shortly before being finished. The kit's very old (2000ish IIRC) and unhappily I have to admit that it shows so I added that little pennant to the front to add some colour.


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## Sigur

Doop-de-doo...Update...

Finished mortar and crew:










WIP Warrior Priest, soon to be finished:










Hope you like them.


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## Sigur

After some sitting around, thinking of possible colour schemes for the steam tank, I came up with this:










I didn't want to go for a metallic hull because nowhere else in the army are large bodies of full metallic colour so I opted to go for a scheme not unlike the one misterjustin (google him if you haven't heard of him yet. He's good at that miniatures painting stuff  He runs Secret Weapon too.) but instead of putting a focus on weathering, I'll keep the paintjob cleaner, more classic. I also added that little variation on the colour scheme to make it a bit more diverse instead of just keeping one colour on each side. So that's the thing I'll be working on mostly for the next days. How do you like the colourscheme?


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## CLT40k

Really nice work! + rep


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## Sigur

@CLT40k: Thanks. 

I did a bit more "outlining" on the Stank so you get a better idea what I'm having in mind:


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## Bane_of_Kings

Nice work, love the warrior priest .


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## Hammer49

The warrior priest looks great. Look forward to seeing more of the steam tank.


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## Sigur

Thanks muchly. 



Okay, it's taking a little (very little) more shape:









...and a frontal shot:


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## Sigur

So here's yet another picture that shows hardly any progress: 


















I decided to just not do the yellow and black furnance. maybe I'll do the top a bit more colourful (hence why it's still yellow). Hope you like it!


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## Hammer49

Your making great progress on the steam tank. Wish I could paint as quick, and as well as you do.


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## Sigur

@Hammer49: Many thanks but I should be so much faster... :S



Okies, Steam Tank is finished (apart from the scripture in the front and a tiny detail in the back I just noticed now):



















FUN FACT: The parchment lookalike thing in the back sports the letters FF and RW which actually is supposed to mean "Fridolin Feichtinger" and "Ronaldo Wunderlich", the engineers in charge who worked on the tank. Only after finishing the letters, I noticed that the letters look a lot like "Fast Forward" and "Rewind".


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## Vaz

Outstanding as ever!


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## Sigur

@Vaz: Thanks very much. 

Alright, as for something not really connected to this Averland commission...what could this be now?


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## Sigur

Alright, after a lot of guessing and reckoning (cough cough), here's the first proper shot of this little project I'm working on aside of my commission work along with some other minis for scale purposes:


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## Sigur

Doop-dee-doo, Update.opcorn:


Anyway, here's some sort of update. Originally I had planned to make this text only but what the hell - let's take some pictures! (brb)

So, let's start with the completed stuff. The Steam Tank is fully finished now:



















Between the Adeptus Mechanicus, steam tank and BA Terminators (see below), there was a little time so I finally tackled (hahaha) this BloodBowl miniature I've meant to paint for a long time because I won him at a painting competition over at GarageGamer's blog. The miniature was made by Gorgon Studios who mostly do ancient historical minis (They good solid ranges on Etruscans and Spartans for instance). I call him Thick McRunfast for obvious reasons. He's not completely finished yet:









(Didn't really want to start another thread just for this one guy)


Things that are up next:
.) 40k Orks!
.) Lots of Blood Angels Terminators!
.) Malifaux! (The Ortegas, yay!)
.) Ironsides Handgunners, General and Battle Standard bearer for the Averland army!
.) ....and another Space Wolves army!

Just a few more words about these Ironside Handgunners - I got the bits today and have to compliment FW on being sensible and sending 10 Bases with the Ironsides bits. They easily could have been less nice and not supply any bases because they're in the regular Handgunners box already. But this way they really make building one regiment of crossbow dudes and one regiment of Ironsides from the same box very comfortable.


That's it for now. Hope you like everything, C&C welcome as always!


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## Bane_of_Kings

Fantastic stuff, can't wait to see your work on the Wolves army .


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## Chaosftw

Wow... that is come amazing painting! very impressive. That steam tank is by far the best I have EVER seen 

+rep
Chaosftw


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## Hammer49

Finished steam tank looks fantastic.


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## Vorropohaiah

i love the quartered paint scheme on the steam tank - very cool and fitting. surprised i havent seen it before. great work (and nice to see the FW models go to such a worthy home)


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## Orochi

You're putting 'Eavy Metal to shame Sigur!


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## aquatic_foible

Orochi said:


> You're putting 'Eavy Metal to shame Sigur!


Seconded! That is an exquisite looking Steam Tank, sir. Can't wait to see a full army shot...


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## Sigur

@Bane_of_Kings: Thanks. Just in case you haven't seen it before - here's a Link to the Space Wolves army thread about the army I did until a few months ago: http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=77399 (incidently, the army is up on ebay at the moment. For some reason, the customer I painted the army for is selling it on already).

@Chaosftw: Thanks man, always glad about some rep. 

@Hammer49: Cheers!

@Vorropohaiah: Thanks. I took misterjustin's very impressive Steam Tank as a basic inspiration and instead of going for the weathing effects as focus, I shook the black/yellow up a little). Colourful tanks usually look better than these chunks of metal which are harder to make look good than one might think.

@Orochi: Woah, thanks. 

@aquatic_foible: Hate to disappoint in this regard but as I'm doing this army in batches and send them off once they're finished it's highly unlikely that we ever see a full army shot. 

Still, I took some army shots of the second batch today. You can see the (slightly downsized) pictures on my facebook page:
Battle Brush Studios on Facebook

Still waiting for the BSB/General and Handgunners being delivered. Ironsides conversion bits are here already.


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## Words_of_Truth

I'm painting an Averland as it happens right now  I was wondering how you get the yellow to look so good because I'm struggling a little with mine.


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## Diatribe1974

Looks great! Keep up the good work.

+rep


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## DaStonedOrk

yo I can't wait to see ur ork army becuz I wanna see how u handle the ork skin because I'mhavin some trouble with getting a look im satisfied with.
Also can I ask how u painted those Space Hulk termis?


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## Sigur

@Words_of_Truth: Cheers. Well, the only secret really is high-pigment paints. Iyanden Darksun is great and really makes painting easier, VMC paints help as well.

@Diatribe1974: Thank you. 

@DaStonedOrk: Thanks. 

It's not much but at least pictures of the third batch - a marksmen detachment along with their leaders:


















I know, it's a bit hard to see at this point. The first picture is pretty self-explanatory - 10 crossbowmen, 10 Ironsides. In the second picture, there's a very fancy Battle Standard bearer and a very simplistic Handgunner Captain. Both are slightly converted and have bitz from various kits. I really love how these characters are very essentially different and ....well, characters on their own. Looking forward to painting them.

I hope you like them so far. I'll also post some pictures of other stuff on here in a sec. Anyway, comments are welcome as always and see you soon!


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## Midge913

Just rolled through your whole log on this one Sigur and I am most impressed with everything! The wizards are phenomenal, I really like the cloak on the Sigmarite Priest, and the alternating black and yellow on the steam tank is really original, excellently painted, and really makes the model look fantastic. Excellent work man! I will be following along with this one.


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## Sigur

@Midge913: Again, thanks very much. 


Update!



















Doesn't look like much at this point but we're getting there. C&C welcome!


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## Vaz

I love how *it doesn't look like much*, yet it's still a higher quality than my own *tryhard* attempts.


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## Sigur

@Vaz: Thanks very much. 

Update:


















The crossbowmen are basically finished while the Ironsides need a little more work.  Hope you like them, C&C welcome as always! Have a nice eurovision weekend.


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## Midge913

Looking great Sigur! I love the way that they white and green feathers contrast so nicely with the yellow and black of the uniforms. Keep the pretty pictures coming!


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## Hammer49

Great work as always.


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## Sigur

Hey guys, thanks for the comments eventhough I've been showcasing nothing but guys in black and yellow pyjamas for the past months. 

Speaking of which, here's the characters:










Still very WIP of course; hope you like them.


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## Orochi

I really enjoyed the Plastic Empire General(s). Both making and painting.

Loving everything so far.


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## Sigur

@Orochi: Thanks. I also like that kit. It's not quite as extensive in terms of bitz as I thought it would be and some things I don't like (*cough*grim reaper puppet on a stick mechanical skull mask cherub*cough*)

Yet another update!

Characters:









and a draft of the battle standard:









Hope you like everything. I'm thinking of what to add to the battle standard now. I think that the eagle side could do with some kind of texture on the yellow as you see on some bretonnian banners but not the swirly pattern I like to do in these cases. Maybe some sort of "studded" look. On the hammer and shield side, I'm thinking of adding some laurels in the yellow fields.


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## Orochi

I think they threw that in there for Dark Angel players


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## Sigur

@Orochi:  Booo, it's always the Dark Angels who get all the attention and fancy models! *retreats hastily*


The characters themselves are mostly finished now and again I couldn't refrain from giving them names (which of course are as always "working titles"):

Wulfgar Düsterich, self-proclaimed executioner in the name of Morr










Max van Patten, fancy-dressing battle standard bearer









Anyway, these are not 100% finished but not much will be changing until then. I'll take pictures of the finished minis of course though.

So let me know if you like them or not or whatever is on your mind.


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## Hammer49

Nice work. Particularly like the standard bearer.


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## Sigur

@Hammer49: Cheers!


...and we're done!



















There's tons of little details I'm still not completely satisfied with but I like the guy pretty well as he is. How about you?


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## Hammer49

Excellent work. Certainly works very well.


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## Saulot

Hey! It's sigur the painting squirrel!! Fancy seeing you here! 

Great stuff as usual! I'm loving the purple accent colour very much!


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## Midge913

Fantastic work Sigur! Love the standard bearer and the icon on the horses barding!


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## Sigur

@Hammer49: Thanks very much.

@Saulot: Jeepers, it's Saulot! Seems like we meet every few years on some different forums.  Thanks for commenting!

@Midge913: Cheers!


Alright, so the army is done really. All that's being added at this point will be the Ironsides command miniatures I ordered earlier today.


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## KjellThorngaard

Love the free hand work. Sure wish my banners looked half as nice...

Good stuff Sigur! +rep


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## Disciple_of_Ezekiel

WoW, well whoever it is that is getting this army should be very very pleased, however, what they will do with it without their arms and legs is beyond me since they probably put them on the black market to pay for an awesome paint job....lol!

Regards,
DoE


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## moo

I've always liked your painting and you do some awesome work, after browsing through this thread you're also super quick at painting ! (something i need to work on) but this is an awesome project. Great stuff and I think you just keep getting better and better. Plus painting yellow really isn't the most easy colour to work with so hats off to you in that respect.

What's your colour recipe for your yellows?


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## greenee22

do you come from holland/belgium? max van patten is a dutch name...
awesome painting, and like moo said, the yellow is very good.


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## Jormi_Boced

Beautiful Plog!


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## Sigur

@KjellThorngaard: Thanks. I'm glad the banners turned out the way they did. 

@Disciple_of_Ezekiel:  It's not THAT terribly pricey and it happened over the course of almost half a year so I guess the client will be alright as I got a ton of follow-up projects from him as well. 

@moo: Thanks a lot for the compliment. I know who it's coming from so it's twice as welcome.  In this case, the yellows were rather straightforward - Iyanden Darksun really is such a great colour. I don't see the reason behind many shades of the Foundation paints but Iyanden Darksun, Mechrite Red and so on.... these rock, especially as I'm painting them over black. Anyway, it's basically a well-covering yellow (I'm sure that VMC have a good equivalent as well) followed by some highlights with slightly lighter yellow, a wash of gryphonne sepia (with some additional shading in case of characters and so on) and some final highlights. It's rather simple and looks fetching.

@greenee22: Cheers. I'm from Austria but somehow I enjoy giving dutch (or very northern-german) sounding names to Empire models. In the case of the standard bearer, it's just a silly little reference though. The first name is taken from a character (Max Keller) from the short-lived 1980s TV series "The Master" (a.k.a. Master Ninja) and last name is the name of the actor who played Max Keller, Timothy van Patten. 

@Jormi_Boced: Thanks very much!


An awful lot of water has gone down the Reik since I last posted here. The thing is that I had to basically retreat from most forums for a bit as I had to settle some things, get some work done, etc.

Anyhow, I'm back now and the Averland army is still growing!

Here's the Ironsides command unit to go with the rest of their fellas:




















...and here's a little odd addition to the army - the mighty Cockatrice!





























You can find more pictures on my website's gallery here. Hope you enjoy the miniature!


In the near future I will undertake a pretty daring conversion project to build a mounted general for the army. He's supposed to be suited to sit on a Warhorse as well as on a Griffon.


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## Midge913

As always Sigur the Empire guys are looking great!

That cockatrice is wonderful man! The detail work on the scales alone really make the model pop! Nice piece of work there bud.


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