Klorophil’s Warhammer Armies

Hello there!

I recently finished painting a Reiver squad for my Ultramarine army. However, during the basing process I ran out of Astrogranite Debris.

I decided to try a recipe which I heard of. Sorry, don’t remember where or when. You take PVA glue and mix it with leftover ground coffee. You add a little bit of water to it to get the consistency that you want. Then you can apply this to your bases. Once dry it can be painted like any other stuff.

This is what it looks like. Not so sure about the results. Overall it is good. It’s just that the grain is not the same size as Astrogranite Debris. Side by side it seems to clash a little bit. Maybe it’s just mild OCD. I’ll have a better idea once I lay my army on the table, I guess it will fit in. We’ll see.

Let me know what you think?

Cheers!

Here is my homemade storage solution for my army. Total cost is about 10$ and my minis should be protected enough that I can carry them without too much worry. I can also add more storage easily.

I started by buying a simple, inexpensive and easy to find plastic container. Tupperware is the brand I think but there’s plenty of alternative cheaper brands. Actually, any sturdy container can work. After that, I stopped at the dollar store and bought some shop foam mats for 2$ each. I was looking for something a bit thinner, but this is still ok. I guess any mats or tile made of the same stuff could work.

It was then simply a question of measuring the minis I have and cutting the mats accordingly. I used my trusty craft knife for that and it cut through the foam no problem at all. I then used a hot-glue gun to glue everything together. If you want to do the same I would advice on getting a metal ruler. This way you can cut your foam without cutting into your measuring device. Also, a cutting mat might be useful. I did mine on a shop bench, so didn’t care much about protecting it.

And that’s it. It might not be as gucci as those Battlefoam jobbies but at 10% of the price there’s no contest in my mind.

Cheers!

Hi there!

Small update on my Ultramarines army. I’ve added quite a lot since my last post. I bought a Combat Patrol and added Infiltrators, Agressors and a couple of other units. I didn’t calculate everything yet as I want to paint everything before making a final-ish army list but I must have over 1500-1750 pts. I still lack a dreadnought or two and I may add a couple of characters just for flavor.

Unfortunately, with the COVID situtation here I simply wasn’t able to play another game. My army wasn’t finished this summer and as soon as colder weather got back, our beloved government decided to shelter in place again!

Fortunately, we are now allowed to see each other again albeit in groups no bigger than 4 people. Plenty enough for a game of 40K though, so got back into painting what I have. I have maybe about 10 models left without any paint on it.

So that’s it for now. I’ll post a couple of pics of my Agressors and my low-cost storage solution. Unfortunately, I don’t have pics of the process of painting everything I have.

Enjoy nonetheless!

Another Primaris Captain because you can never have enough. I’m beginning to nail down the paint scheme. I painted this one in one or two sessions. So I’m picking up speed. I totally intend on slowing down things a lot. I just bought an airbrush kit. So I will tryto learn the basics with this army. Enjoy!

So I’ve got one of my Intercessor squads done. I used the same recipe as below. However, I decided to go true metal metallics this time and I really prefer this result.

For the steel elements, I used Army Painter Gunmetal. Nothing special about this paint, it’s just what I had handy. Once that was dry I washed everything with Citadel Nuln Oil. I decided against highlighting this as I find the muted tone fitting to a used combat armor.

For the gold elements. I first put a very thin coat of P3 Moldy Ochre yellow. I wanted to use Citadel Averland Sunset but my pot was dried beyond salvage. So Moldy Ochre it was. It doesn’t really matter. The goal is only to put a yellow coat under the gold. That way a single coat of metallic gold will be enough as anything not covered by the first pass will show up as yellow. I used Citadel Retributor Armor for the first pass of metallics. Once that was dry I washed everything with Reikland Fleshade. Once that was dry I put a final highlight of Citadel Gehena’s Gold on parts which would receive the most light in real-life.

Here are the results.

Hi there,

Over the holidays I received two boxes of Primaris Intercessors. I started assembling them yesterday and they should be ready for painting this weekend. I’m quite astounded by the quality of those minis. The assembly guide is top notch and there are no mold lines whatsoever. They do require a minimum of cleaning from the the sprues. But assembling them is a breeze.

I’ll show you how the painting has gone down later.

Cheers.

Hi there!

It took a while but, with this Space Marine Captain, I finally finished painting the starter box below. Motivation simply wasn’t there. We are stuck in our houses since October here and it probably will be like that until Spring. We weren’t even allowed to celebrate x-mas with our loved ones. So opportunities to play WH40K are inexistant. I may try something over webcams but I don’t see how for now.

Anyways, here my Captain. I used the method below to paint the armor. Golden parts were basecoated white and then a coat Contrast Nazdreg Yellow was applied. Once that was dry I applied a final coat of Reikland Fleshade wash. I don’t really like it if I’m honest. I might return to true metals for my next models.

Cheers!

So here is the finished Assault Intercessor squad as well as the Outriders bikes, ready to play. I tested two varnishes before deciding. First was Army Painter’s Anti-Shine. It is a great varnish but not necessarily the finish I wanted. It muted everything way down. I settled on Rust-o-Leum’s Matt varnish. Not great but its satin finish was what I was looking for.

Bases were done with Citadel’s Astrogranite Debris Technical paint. I had a pot of this laying around that’s why. I’ll finish this one and then give a try to the classic coffee grinds and PVA glue. The Astrogranite Debris was washed with Citadel’s Nuln Oil Wash and then drybrushed with a home mix of black and white Liquitex Heavy Body paints.

And that’s it. Only the Captain is left. I also have the Codex in the mail, so will wait until I get it to upgrade my small detachment.

Cheers!

I decided to try to do a kind of non-metallic metals for the golden parts of the armor. Not so sure that I like the result. Let me know what you think.

Once a coat of P3 Menoth White Highlight was applied to all parts that were to be gold, I added a coat of Citadel Nazdreg Yellow Contrast. Once that was dry I added a wash of Citadel Reikland Fleshade Wash. The Nazdreg acted as a metallic gold and the Reikland is the wash that I always apply to golden parts. It brings a nice warmth and depth to gold metallics. I’d say it kinda worked, but I don’t feel like it’s gold. Anyway, it’s a nice contrast to the overall blueness of the model.

The helmet’s eyes is simply Citadel Gryp-Hound Orange Contrast. I hesitated between red or green but I think orange is nice and a little bit different. There are thousands of Ultramarine minis out there so I wanted mine to be a bit different.

You’ll see in the group shot below that it’s almost done. I won’t bore you with more painting steps. However, I will simply talk about the bases. They will later be covered with Citadel Technical basing stuff. I forget the name right now. It’s basically grey paint with sand in it. So I put a basecoat of P3 Bastion Grey on there. Any old medium grey would work here. It’s simply there to provide a background colour for the basing material so that bare patches don’t show too much. I guess I could also have left them black, as grey to black is not too contrasting. However, if you’re using a lighter shade of basing material this step becomes essential.

Now that the armor was done, I needed to pick up the details. Leather was done with P3 Bootstrap Leather. This was then washed with Citadel Snakebite Leather Contrast. I then edge highlighted with a second pass of pure Bootstrap Leather. Complete!

The bolters were painted with P3 Thamar Black and edge highlighted with a mix of P3 Thamar Black and Liquitex Titanium White. I used Liquitex because that’s what I had handy but any old pure white would have worked.

I will need to work on my edge highlighting technique. I don’t find it too difficult but it requires excellent brush control. Just don’t drink too much coffee beforehand. I did find that having the right brush and paint consistency is critical. It’s better to have a bit brighter color but with a milk-like consistency. This way it’s easier to control the flow of paint from your brush to the mini. Having a brighter tone will also mean that it will dry a bit darker on the mini since you thinned the paint down a lot. Let transparency work for you. I used a 00 Windsor Series 7 brush for this. I guess any good sable brush could work, but I adore my Series 7s. Also, a bigger brush could work too if you’re good with brush control.

You’ll see that I also picked out the imperial eagle as well as the helmet’s eyes. I used P3 Menoth White Highlight  (MWH) for that. Again thinned down to a milky consistency. I will use Contrast Paints on those parts later and I found that MWH is really good proxy for Citadel’s Wraithbone Base. Since I don’t like Citadel’s Base paints I prefer using MWH. A word of advice though, be sure to wait until the MWH is thoroughly dry before either applying another coat or applying your Contrast Paint. You may end up with bad results otherwise.

So the basecoat was done. The Nuln Oil toned down the blue pretty heavily so I needed to bring that up. Always following the same principle of quick and easy, I decided on drybrushing the whole lot.

I used my wet palette to do that and a stiff bristled square brush. I didn’t invest in a good one, simply the cheapest one I could find at my art store and that was the right size. I put all my colors on the wet palette. Those were Cygnar Blue Base, Cygnar Highlight and Frostbite.

All from Privateer Press Paints, P3. I find those paints better for coloring. They have the right texture right out of the pot. They may not cover as good as Citadel’s Base paints, but I much prefer painting two coats than having a paint that is too thick and that would obscure some details.

I used the wet palette to gradually mix those three paints together. It also left me with my previous colors for edge highlighting. I used a mix of 25% Cygnar Blue Highlight and 75% Frostbite for that. I then made a second pass with the same mixture but with Menoth White Highlight added. This pushed the saturation way up and kind of cleaned my mistakes a little bit by steering the eye away from them.

Drybrushing can make color transitions a bit harsh. Also, you can kinda see the brush strokes in certain parts. That was taken care of with a glaze of Citadel Gulliman Blue Glaze. I used it pure. In retrospect, maybe I should have thinned it down a bit as it darkened the model a bit too much. I’m still quite pleased with the final result that you can see below. A squad of 5 Intercessors took maybe 30 minutes to do, excluding the Wash and Glaze drying time.

So I wanted to have a quick and easy way to paint my army of Ultramarines. Here are the color tests that I did before settling in on my preferred recipe.

First, everything was primed pure black. No zenithal priming. I decided on this as the minis would be primarly ultramarine blue. So a dark basecoat would be fine and actually help the blue pigments cover the mini more easily. If I ever missed a part of the mini in my future painting, it would only mean that a pretty deep recess would be pure black. This is good as it would automatically create a shadow exactly where I need it.

Two of the minis that you see below were basecoated with pure P3 Cygnar Blue Base. The other one was basecoated with pure P3 Exile Blue. Then one of the Cygnar Blue one was covered with Citadel Ultramarine Blue Contrast. The next one was covered with Citadel Nuln Oil Wash and the Exile Blue one was left as is.

Contrast over Cygnar Blue Base didn’t do much difference so I dismissed this idea. Pure Exile Blue was a little too dark for my taste. I finally decided on Cygnar Blue Base with Nuln Oil. The Nuln Oil would take care of the deepest recesses and let the Blue Base shine through, while tinting eveything a deeper blue tone. Perfect!!

A small adviced for those of you searching for your perfect paint scheme. Look at your minis in different lights. What might seem pretty bright under your work light may be too dark in normal sunlight or with the lights that you usually use to play your games.

I already have assembled and primed all minis. I have to say that I’m pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to build those figures. I understand that they are the snap-fit kind so I’m wondering what normal models will be like. Nonetheless, they are some of the highest quality minis I have seen in a while. I first started playing 40K with the 3rd Edition. We had some plastic models back then but bigger ones were pewter and quite difficult to assemble. Now the fit and finish is perfect.

I’ll try and exchange the Necrons with one of my buddies who’s playing them. He bought the Indomitus box and might be persuaded into parting away with his marines.

My first step back into the hobby has been the new Command Starter Box. I decided on playing the Ultramarines as a beginner army. I think it will be easier to learn the rules that way. Space Marines seems to be quite easy to play. However, they also seem to have a lot of depth and there isn’t a single model that I don’t like.

Here goes nothing.