# Malisteen's Black Legionnaires



## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Hello, my fellow Heretics. Name's Malisteen, and though I'm new around here, some of you may know me from other forums around the net. I'm a chaos player, and though I'd fallen away from the game during 5th edition, 6th edition and the upcoming Chaos codex has me positively _psyked_. Psyked enough to bust out the remains of my once massive chaos marine collection - now a pale, broken shadow of its former self, and start sorting and modeling in preparation for a major painting offensive.

Anyway, with a mess of sorting and assembling and priming underway, it was time to decide how to start off this painting log, and for a dedicated Black Legionnaire such as myself there was only one model suitable for such an ostentatious occasion - Ezekyle Abaddon himself! Or rather, my conversion of him using a plastic termie lord and old Abaddon's weapons. So here he is, my take on the Despoiler in all his dark glory:






































And here he is with his terminator retinue, hanging out on my new, top-of-the-line, genuine corrugated cardboard painting station (Like I'm going to hand GW my hard earned boondollars for an overpriced plastic tray when I could be buying overpriced plastic models instead!) The terminators were painted long ago, and I imagine some of them will be getting hacked apart and reconverted based on how their options look in the new book.










What's that you say? closer pictures of the terminators? But since they were already painted, they aren't technically part of this project! Eh, ok, you pulled my leg.

First up, the elder terminators, primarily converted from 2e plastic loyalist terminators, enlarged & chaosified, starting with the magnetized icon bearer:





































And here's some terminators built primarily out of the current chaos termie kit:



















And a mixed group, to see how they look together:










Eh, while I'm posting old stuff, here's my daemon prince, who will be partially repainted later on in this project, and my former chaos lord Mojo Jojo (retired since the 4e book took his kai gun) who, if the rumors prove accurate, will be reconverted & repainted as a warpsmith after the new codex is released:




















Alright, so enough reliving old glories, back to new stuff! With a monstrous new HQ and massive elites squad ready for the table, I need to work double time on some troops squads to make up the difference. First up is a squad of 10 chaos marines, including magnetized special weapons, champion, & icon bearer. The optional bits will come after, leaving the champion without arms at the moment.

Here's how they started the day:










And here's how they're finishing it out, after a dark grey overbrush, lighter grey drybrush, dark metal trim, P3 gold shoulders, black wash, and light purple ribbing:











Hopefully i'll be able to make some more progress tomorrow, but if not there will at least be some updates this weekend.


And after the chaos marines? More chaos marines!


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## Chaosftw (Oct 20, 2008)

Wow.. interesting colour scheme! I kind of like where this one is going! Chaos Marines are a beautiful thing! I love how you have I nice mini horde accumulating!


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

I'm one of those players whose eyes are bigger than his paintbrush. At one point I had over 8,000 points worth of chaos marine models (including an Armorcast Reaver and a Nurgle'd up Baneblade). However, less than half of that was assembled, and barely over 1,000 points were painted, most at nowhere near the level of anything above.

A couple years back I quit warhammer, and tried to sell, trade, or just give away all my stuff. But I had so much, in so many different places, that I failed, and still have upwards of 4,000 points in various stages of disrepair. By the time I found the remaining stashes, I didn't really want to ditch them anymore. There were only a few losses I regret - the superheavies didn't go to a bad home exactly, but the guy I sold them to hasn't done anything with them. If I ever have money again, I might try to buy them back.

What I really miss was my conversion of Him from the Powerpuff girls, made out of a heavily reposed & greenstuffed Keeper of Secrets. He had the whole deal - the crab claws, skinny legs, thigh high boots, santa suit... I don't even know where that ended up, and I doubt I'll ever see it again. Oh, well. At least Mojo's still with me.

As it is, well, my eyes are still way bigger then my paintbrush, but my wallet no longer is, holding impulse purchases somewhat in check, and keeping my hobby enthusiasm focused on the task at hand.


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Alright, work on the chaos marines continues. Steps from last time:

purple ink the ribbing
khacki hornes, bones, paper
tan cloth
pink flesh for the white guy, dark flesh for the black guy
iyanden yellow tassels & top knots
mud wash all the khaki/tan/flesh/yellows
black wash for the black guy
highlight ribbing w/ light purple
highlight cloth/hornes/bone w/ tan & khaki
highlight bone & paper w/ mix of khaki & white
highlight yellow w/ iyanden & brighter yellow
highlight white guy w/ flesh & flesh mixed w/ pale grey
highlight black guy with brown & tan
purple & red inks around eyes, cybernetics on the two guys without helmets
stipple/highlight hair for salt & pepper effect on the one guy with hair
pick out silver trim highlights * studs
pick out gold detail highlights
paint bullets brass

And that's all I could get through since the last update (two days of work?). Should hopefully be able to finish these guys up tomorrow. Here's how they look now:










I'm really liking how the champion's turning out. Probably my favorite champ I've worked on. My headcannon is those purity seals are trophies from loyalist sergeants that he's slain who had themselves sworn to slay him and wore those vows to their deaths. I'll have to come up with a fittingly brutal name for him.

Since there's less metal trim on the power armored marines, they look a lot grimmer than my terminators. Later on in this project, I may re-paint the terminators slightly to bring them down a bit. But that wouldn't be for a while.

In the mean time, I need to finish these guys, and then decide whether I'm going to paint something else as a treat before I tackle ten more just like them.


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## Straken's_Fist (Aug 15, 2012)

Loving the colour scheme. And that Daemon Prince is pretty epic! Is it converted?


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

It's the old metal daemon prince, with wings & tail from the old wood elf forest dragon (before they added little spirits all over it), a face mask from the defiler, and a sword from the keeper of secrets, along with a bit of putty work.


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## Disciple_of_Ezekiel (May 23, 2010)

Hey Malisteen,

Your Black Legion look great and I particularly like the free hand "eye" on the shoulder markings, well done. Your Terminators look great, same goes for Abaddon. All of their power weapons look super. The only strange thing is the Mojo Dojo character...I know it's from a cartoon, just strange =)

Nontheless, great work and look forward to seeing your other additions painted up.

Regards,
DoE


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Mojo's one of the earliest models in my army. A long time ago, I had seen a few armies based on themes from outside the game - like an Army of Darkness vamp counts army with the propeller car and everything - and I wanted to do something like that. At the time I was a huge powerpuff fan, and I decided to do an army where every model was a recognizeable powerpuff villain, and ended up going with chaos marines in 40k. This was around the time the 3.0 chaos book hit.

At one point I had Mojo piloting a dread, Him as a keeper of secrets, some cultists in orange prison jump suits, a mange completely (and poorly) sculpted out of greenstuff, and three green stuff Amoeba boys with assorted guns floating in them as oblits.

After the 3.5 book was released, I created this version of Mojo as a chaos lord with a Kai gun. But around that time I kind of gave up on the converted army thing - most of the conversions & sculpts weren't very good, and it was way too much work. But in the mean time, I had become a pretty big fan of the Chaos Marine faction and the Black Legion in particular, so I started collecting a more normal chaos force.

At some point all of my powerpuff stuff other was lost or destroyed or given away, and only Mojo remains, hence how out of place he seems with the rest of my more srsbzns chaos army. I still like him though, he's like a mascot, and he will be reconverted and repainted after the new codex hits.

-----------

Actually, the power weapons are something I wanted to ask people's opinions on. When I first started painting my black legion, I was worried that there wouldn't be enough color. Hence the purple ribbing, more prominent red/orange eyes, red wires, blue power weapons, and green plasma coils.

Now I'm wondering if I maybe went a bit overboard, with too many different colors distracting from the overall sombre tone of the black legion's scheme. I definitely like the purple and orange, but I've been considering repainting the plasma coils and power weapons to be red/orange like the eyes, instead of blue and green.

Does that sound like a good idea or not? I'm trying to decide before I get to the point of painting the special weapons and champion bits from the new squad. Or maybe I should just paint them red-orange, stick them next to my terminators, and decide which one I like more then?


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Alright, first batch of ten chaos marines is done, and here they are!










Alright, well, they aren't _done_ done. I still need to paint up the magnetized bits - special weapons, icons, & champion arms. That's the next project going, I've still got some magnets to add and mold lines to trim, but I should be able to have that stuff primed tomorrow, and the squad can be done done this weekend.

Anyway, they're done enough for some close ups, so...


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## Straken's_Fist (Aug 15, 2012)

Nice man! Like the 'eye' on the shoulder.


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## Lethiathan (Nov 11, 2011)

Horus is watching. Those eyes make everything look scary. And don't even think of repainting the flesh on the deamon prince... It looks epic, the armour can be touched up but the skin is awesome. (ok you can change it... But don't change the scheme it's really good!)


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Thanks for the encouragement!


I have no desire to repaint the skin on the prince - the black up to purple, up to red orange in some areas just looks fantastic, imo. The black armor bits, though? I'm still not great at highlighting black, but I like my current method a lot more than my old method of "just paint it black and slap some gloss coat on it". Also, the tarnished gold trim on the prince, while it looks nice, doesn't really match my current gold trim too well. I'd like them to match, but I don't think the brighter gold w/ blue/green patina on the prince will look so good on my more sombre chaos marines, so it's the prince that'll get the touch ups. And the mask will probably be black or gold instead of silver, and the hornes will probably be bone colored instead of bluish silver, and you can't see it, but the matte spray came out a bit dusty on top of the wings, so I might repaint them, and I might repaint the sword....

But the skin and the base are staying as they are. Well, I might update the base a tad.

On the subject of the cityfight bases, here's how I've been painting them these days

- textured paint over any bare surfaces
- watered down green/grey base coat (P3 bastion grey)
- patches of watered down olive green & warmer brown
- overbrush dark grey
- highlight light grey
- metal bits painted ruddy orange (I mixed mechite with a bright P3 orange)
- metal bits brushed with dark silver, lightly brushed with brighter silver
- the one marine helmet was painted individually, but left deliberately drab to avoid distracting from the model.
- watered down devlan mud wash
- black rim
- touch up model with black & silver.... lots of touching up was needed, maybe I'll do bases first in the future.

I'm very happy with these bases - the green & brown give them some tonal variety, the grey drybrushes bring it all together despite the variety of basing methods used (resin bits, slate, sand, textured paint), the rusted metal effect came out looking pretty good. It has a nice cityfight look, and the lighter overall color contrasts well with the darker models without distracting from them. On that note, I think maybe the black trim might have been a mistake, and I might paint a darker grey over it instead, but other then that, yeah.

Anyway, I just found some GW razorwire I had hidden from myself in a box in my last move, and I'm excited to use some more of it in future basing projects, that stuff is great.


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## cobra.commander (May 8, 2010)

I've seen these somewhere before! LOL, its space wolf from B&C. As for highlighting black this is how I do it.

First it depends on what the material is that you're highlighting. Is it black leather? Cloth? Armor? The general rule of thumb is to use a "warmer black" for things that are soft and flexible, and "cooler black" for things that are hard.

Usually my highlighting color is something like this(pardon the use of old colors, as that is all I have at the moment): scorched brown, camo green, and a small amount of black. This will give you a very, very, very, black like tone, that will show up just enough to highlight your black. the green and brown add that realistic highlight, that adding white or grey just won't. If I'm highlighting a soft material, I aim for more brown, this will make the color "warmer." Aim for a ratio of 3:2:1 of the colors listed above (its not exact so you may have to mix in more of one or the other colors, depending on taste). If its a harder surface use the same formula, but add more green and less brown. You may even consider adding in a hint of blue.

Try it out, you may just like it. Hope this helped.


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

I'm not all that unhappy with my current black, though I might add another black wash, and maybe a post wash highlight on fingers or such. It's got a matte, faded look that I like well enough.


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Well, the little magnet bits are still in progress, and should be done sometime this weekend at which point this unit will be officially done. At that point I will be taking a short break from painting marine squads to work on something more interesting - not painting, but a conversion project! Inspired by some in progress conversions of seen (and the realization that my own poverty will probably prevent me from picking up the new starter set), I've decided to tackle the job of converting my FW black legion dread (the only forgeworld model I own) into a proper Hellbrute.

The goals for the project are to make it bigger and more mutated, and since I'm reworking it anyway to take the opportunity to use magnets for swappable arms and alignment. So the first step was getting the magnets in place & building in some extensions at the midpoints, shoulders, & ankles both to make it larger and to provide space for daemonic mutation greenstuff work.

And that's pretty much what I got done today, along with starting work on a butcher cannon (I was going to go with ammo drums, but ended up sticking with the belt feed that was already on the heavy bolter arm I started with) and a power fist (the dread close combat weapon bit snapped while I was ripping the already glued model apart, so I figured I might as well lay the groundwork for something a bit more beefy). I may end up going with a monster claw instead of the standard dread power fist, but I do like the way the dreadnought leg is working as an arm. I left the heavy flamer built into the torso. I can't imagine not taking that option, so I don't feel compelled to make it swappable via magnets.

This is probably going to be my default configuration - undivided, butcher cannon, power fist, & heavy flamer, though I do plan to eventually work up heavy flamer and add'l power fist arms, and the banner pole fits the icons I'm using for my CSM squads, so any alignment will be available. I also put magnets in at the waist, so I could break it down for easier transportation.

Anyway, pics so far:





































At this point, it's ready for greenstuff work, which I'll start after I've finished the remaining bits for the CSM squad I've been painting.


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

I've been reshuffling my photo collection, which has killed many of the links in this thread. Now that the site's running again, I'll be going back to fix the tags later today. In the mean time, some stuff I've been doing since:

Decided to collect some of my many, many unpainted models into some sort of 1000ish point starter army, to give me a target to aim for. Here's the stuff that made the cut:

























































































































While they're not in the starter army, I've also been updating Abaddon & the icon bearer from before to the revised color scheme. They're about half way there now.


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Fixed the previous image links. Also, some base coat progress on the chaos lord:


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## gearhart (Oct 18, 2011)

Great job! your conversions are amazing and the painting is fantastic! great job


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Thanks!

Here's another progress update on the Dark Vengeance Lord. I'd say the last pics showed him about 1/3 done, while this set is closer to 2/3 done. Hopefully I'll be able to have him done by the next update.


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## gearhart (Oct 18, 2011)

Malisteen said:


> Thanks!
> 
> Here's another progress update on the Dark Vengeance Lord. I'd say the last pics showed him about 1/3 done, while this set is closer to 2/3 done. Hopefully I'll be able to have him done by the next update.



Very nice! cant wait to see him finished, i love the way you blended the grey highlighting with the black! keep it up!


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Oooh, these are looking pretty nice. A muted, understated, yet thoroughly threatening color scheme.

Nice conversions and magnet work, to boot. Color me jealous.


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Thanks. That's more or less what I'm going for, dark, somber, menacing chaos marines, and then I'll go for some more bright and garish colors when I eventually get around to adding some allied daemons.

I actually had to alter my color scheme when the prior scheme proved a bit too colorful - I had worried the black legion would be a bit too drab and overcompensated. Since then I've replaced the blue power weapons with red/orange matching the eyes, and switched to more muted purples. in the soft armor. I also finally broke down and did the edge highlights on the armor, darkening the black first for more contrast. Here's a couple comparison pics, with the old scheme on the left and the new on the right:



















I'm still updating the models from earlier in the thread, but the in progress chaos lord has been following the newer scheme from the start - with some added touches since he's a lord and all.


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Lord's done. Trying to edge highlight the black armor around the jagged metal trim was a pain. Also, I keep getting a glossy highlight reflection right in the middle of the darkest shadow on the cloak, despite using my non-glossiest black and mattest of matt spray overcoats. Still, I'm pretty happy with him overall. The DV lord is a fantastic model. Shame 'power armored infantry lord with some kind of sword' is such a poor choice in the new codex.


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## Hellados (Sep 16, 2009)

These are some of the best painted black power armoured guys I have ever seen, nicely muted colours, the eyes, the highlighting, love 'em


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Thanks! I've made a couple _final_ final touches to the lord - fixing a spot on the sword's tongue, lightening up the edge highlight on the outside of the pistol arm, picking out the white highlight one of the armor teeth that I missed. Nothing sufficient to warrant new pictures now, but there will be more pics of this guy later.

This weekend I'll be starting up the next batch of chaos marines, finishing up updating the last ten & Abby to the revised paint scheme as I go. More pics next week.


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## rich11762 (Jul 18, 2010)

The lord looks great mate, I like the skulls the best there looking really good i need to practice doing skulls a lot more.


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

Hey he's looking really good.

I like the color choice but I think a lot of your highlighting is really abrupt, but that's a style/technique difference. 

That reflective issues probably had more to do with angle than anything else. I often see the same thing when priming flat black.


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## Lord Konrad Curze (Oct 28, 2012)

Hey!
Beautifull minis! I like it! But I wonder if the cape would not be better in another color, like white or red.
The purple pipes look good!


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Thanks, I like the purple, too. Another color might have worked on the cape, but I was concerned that it would distract too much from the primary color scheme. In the end, I like how it turned out.

Anyway, it's been a while since I last updated here. Since then I haven't done much painting, although I did start the next batch of chaos marines:











I've also started conversion work on the new HQ options, the Dark Apostle and the Warpsmith:

*Savion the Accursed, Dark Apostle of the Black Legion*



















The apostle is obviously the chosen champ from the dark vengeance box - and I'm hardly the first person to use that model as such. Didn't even have to do much, just swap the backpack for one from another chosen model (the apostle doesn't have a bolter, after all), and add a bit from the CSM sprue to represent the sigil. I stuck 'im on a bigger base (all my heroes are on 40mm bases or larger, to give more modeling room & let them stand out a bit), and might add a bit more to the base (skulls, barbed wire, etc), but otherwise he's ready for painting. Which I'm sure I'll get around to. Some day.

Next up is the Warpsmith. I had intended to convert my old Mojo model into a warpsmith. However, the codex warpsmith lacked anything equivalent to old Mojo's Kai gun, and Mojo's power armor didn't really match the fleshmetal that the Warpsmith is supposed to wear. And I wasn't sure how I was going to do the mechatendrils. Still, despite liking the design of the new model, I knew how terrible finecast could be, especially on a model with so much detail, so there was no way I was going to buy it.


*Mojo Jokaero, Warpsmith of the Black Legion*





































But then someone got it for me as a gift, thinking that my only objection to it was the price, not the material itself. And you know what? My fears were totally justified. It didn't seem terrible enough to return it on the sprues, but once assembly was underway it became obvious that bubbles and mold issues left it difficult to assemble, with much lost detail & nearly every rivet ruined (most of them have been scraped off at this point). I DO NOT RECOMMEND PURCHASING THIS MODEL.

But I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I set to work, trimming away damaged detail & filling obnoxious gaps with greenstuff. To preserve some of my original plan, I brought in the head from my old Mojo Jojo model. The raised arm holding the axe was far too tiny next to mojo's obnoxiously large noggin, so I swapped it out for a furry beast guy arm from a D&D mini, which is better proportioned with the head, and works with the whole chimp thing. In the process I replaced the shaft of the axe with some brass wire - doesn't look as cool, but shouldn't warp or break like I feared the finecast would. I didn't replace the other arm, since it was down and more obscured, making it less obviously a problem and more difficult to reach anyway, and besides - it's more obviously artificial. If the proportions of it start bugging me, I'll replace it later.

I did take the opportunity to swap the pistol out for a flamer, as I figure I'll give this guy the artifact flamer when I'm running him. It brings back some of the old Mojo's anti-meq shooting, and if I were overly concerned about points efficiency in a particular game, he probably wouldn't make it to the table anyway. I'll probably give him the Mark of Khorne, since it seems the best fit for his personality. Yeah, he's a super genius who comes up with overcomplicated plans, but whenever he gets worked up, or finds himself with a bit of power, he tends to fly into a brute physical rage (ref: the movie, or that episode he convinced the Professor to give him superpowers), and most of his inventions are designed just to destroy things or blow them up anyway.

He still needs some more minor gap & bubble filling, but other then that, he's ready for painting. Working on a new incarnation of Mojo also inspired me to start work on another project, but that's not ready to show yet (and with CoC painting work still to do, may not be ready for some time).


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## DanoNecrono (Apr 15, 2012)

I'm a sucker for purple so that's +1 and I really really like the eyes you've used. What colours did you use to get that so nice?


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

DanoNecrono said:


> I'm a sucker for purple so that's +1 and I really really like the eyes you've used. What colours did you use to get that so nice?


The eyes in particular, or everything in general?

For the eyes, I use a thin layer or two of mechite red to give a solid base over the black, then I use a few P3 paints to brighten it up: Khador Red Base first to cover the whole circle of the eye, then Khador Red Highlight (a bright orange), leaving some of the red showing at the edges, then Cygnar Yellow leaving some of the orange showing as well, then a Chaos Black slit for the pupil. I also give the eyes an extra coat of gloss varnish to help them stand out.

I use the P3s for the reds & oranges because I have them, not because I think they're better than GW paints. They're still pretty runny compared to other colors, and can require multiple coats to get right. Any nice bright red, orange, & yellow should do.


For the purple soft armor, I use the new GW slaaneshi line: Daemonette hide as a base, Slaaneshi grey for the highlight, & a purple wash, followed by a further slaaneshi grey highlight. It results in a nice, muted purple-grey, that adds some color to the Black Legion color scheme without distracting from the primary colors or ruining the overall sombre effect. The Slaaneshi Grey is pale and light enough that I also use it as the final edge highlight for the black armor plates, helping to bring the tones together.

The purplish daemonic flesh is a little bit more involved, starting with some relatively neutral brown or other, I forget which exactly, but I use the same as the base tone for horn, bone, & leather areas, then highlighting with rakarth flesh before a purple wash, then highlighted up to slaaneshi grey and then purple and red washes are applied to the recesses of different areas.


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Malisteen said:


> I DO NOT RECOMMEND PURCHASING THIS MODEL.


...damn. I really like the aesthetic of the model too, but I guess I can take that quiet little hope and put it down.

The BBoS is definitely the way to go on the Warpsmith, though. Being able to fire that and a flamer on the same turn? Delightful! Stick him in, say, a squad of Chosen with 2 meltas, 3 flamers, and a champ w/ combi-melta and LC, and he fits right in. Some rare synergy in the CSM list: a unit that can switch roles between anti-tank, anti-infantry and melee with ease and is damn good at all of them. Plus LOLverwatch with 5 flamers...

(okay, so I haven't tried that combo in-game yet. Looks good on paper, though!)


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## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

You chose and converted some pretty awesome models I must say. I like how you added enough color to the Black Legion models to make them more interesting. I think the problem with most Black Legion armies is that most people don't really spend enough time. Good job!


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## DanoNecrono (Apr 15, 2012)

Malisteen said:


> The eyes in particular, or everything in general?
> 
> For the eyes, I use a thin layer or two of mechite red to give a solid base over the black, then I use a few P3 paints to brighten it up: Khador Red Base first to cover the whole circle of the eye, then Khador Red Highlight (a bright orange), leaving some of the red showing at the edges, then Cygnar Yellow leaving some of the orange showing as well, then a Chaos Black slit for the pupil. I also give the eyes an extra coat of gloss varnish to help them stand out.
> 
> ...


Appreciate the great detailed response. I was initially just referring to the eyes themselves but you've done a great job with everything so the extra info doesn't hurt.


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## Malisteen (Aug 15, 2012)

Also note that the purples I use have changed since the release of the new GW line. I used to use a much more saturated purple, which you can see in the Chaos Marines I was working on in the first couple pages of this thread. In the end, I decided that purple was too distracting, and ruined the overall effect of the model. This Post shows a comparison of the old scheme next to the new scheme, which, among other changes, uses the newer muted slaaneshi purples.




Mossy Toes said:


> ...damn. I really like the aesthetic of the model too, but I guess I can take that quiet little hope and put it down.


The model's left shoulder pad is supposed to have a row of circular bump things down the middle - each one on my model was ruined by a large bubble, so I removed them. You can still see the bubbles showing in the pictures of mojo even after removing the raised bumps. The segmented loincloth is supposed to have rivets on the sides, something like eight or ten of them in total. Every one of them was ruined by little bubbles. There are the remains of rivets ruined by bubbles on the models knees that I still need to remove & fill. The model's right arm piece was not fully molded. It was an error that was not apparent on the sprue, but resulted in a poor fit, and a large, blatant gap where it connected to the back cape piece that had to be filled with green stuff. The arms, back, & backpack were all subtly warped in ways not blatant on the sprues, but that resulted in a particularly difficult assembly, with pieces fitting poorly and more gap filling necessary. As with the rivets, small bubbles ruined about half of the many, many spikes on the model, and I had to remove several of them. Every single one of the tentacles has areas of messed up detail due to both mold issues and to the many, many supporting structures that needed to be included on the sprue. The long skinny shaft of the axe was bent - I was able to straighten it with hot water, but it likely would have slowly bent back over time, or simply broken in transport, which is part of why I've replaced it with a simple brass wire here. I had meant to preserve more of the axe head, but the cord piece snapped when I trimmed the head from the shaft. There are supporting structures supporting bits of raised detail all over the model (pieces supporting the chest plate, cross pieces supporting spikes - which were still ruined by bubbles in my model - and so on that had to be included due to the softness and weakness of the resin, but that are very difficult to remove without damaging the detail they were included to support.

I _love_ the design of the warpsmith. But a model with this much detail, and this _kind_ of detail (finecast's failures are obscured by biological detail, such as on nids or daemons, but dramatically emphasized by mechanical detail, as with this model), and this many intricate interlocking parts; a model full of hard edges, sharp corners, many tiny bumps and spikes, and several long thin pieces, including one that is supposed to be a long, straight weapon shaft, it's just a nightmare to work with in finecast.

If you've got strong hobby skills, infinite patience, a fully assembled model to reference to help identify problems on the sprue, a willingness to return the model for even slight visible problems on the sprue (because you can bet that more problems will show up once you're assembling it), a bankroll large enough to be willing to pay top dollar for a painfully flawed product, and you just absolutely love the warpsmith's design, then the model could be worth your time. But those are a lot of very serious ifs, and they deserve serious consideration. My strong personal recommendation is to look into either converting an old metal marine tech in servo harness, if you can find one, or to add some robo-tentacles to a plastic chaos marine terminator or terminator lord.


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## Dakingofchaos (Sep 29, 2009)

Some fine looking chaos you've got there. Shame about your choice of god but I suppose I can overlook that - I particularly like your Hellbrute; I have yet to brave the task of chopping up a snap fit model.

Daking


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