Blog Birthing a New Army

So, as I mentioned before, I am just getting into AoS and I am excited to start building and painting my first army. I have always wanted any, Any excuse to start building and painting Seraphon models. And I am hoping starting up a blog, I might just keep myself honest and painting/building on a quasi-regular schedule and fight showing up with a wave of gray plastic to my first game.

So day 1:

 

Starting off with the big boy of the box...

 

Good start!
No excuse needed to build/paint Dinos, it speaks for it self

Good luck and enjoy

Grrr, Imrahil

 

I wanted to have my cake and eat it too so I decided to have all of the extra plates from the stock solar engine and the big neck plates from the Ark of Sotek. Oh and magnets are alway fun so interchangeable headplates happened.

I can't wait to get some paint on this thing!

 

Looking forwards to the completion and painting!

 

Magnets for the win my friend!

I'm expecting great things!

 

Hopefully I can deliver

 

Okay, I've got all the models in the box assembled (or at least, to subassemblies), aaaaand I found out a friend was planning to part ways with a box of Seraphon he had partly assembled/painted...I suddenly have a lot more dinosaurs to paint!!!

 

I am thinking about having a fairly diverse looking army on the tabletop (colorful varied rainforest and all that). I think that you have to field units in min troop size chunks; so I am thinking that I will batch up at least 10 skinks at a time with any particular colour scheme. And every Behemoth/Monster/Hero should be unique.

First proof of concept on the chopping block is a skink from a hunting pack. I want to keep it pretty simple since I am going to be painting a ton of these...a ton but I do like it quite a bit. I definitely need to lighten up the shield a bit more before I glaze it on the rest of the batch, and I should probably add a bit of satin medium to the green to give it a little sheen.

 

Ooooo I love the dark tones of the skink with the yellow/red, and I think you're right that with lighter colours and some sheen that shield would look incredible! Excited to see what you do with the bastilodon

I wish my friends would suddenly decide to unload some lizardmen right as I start an army - would make my life a lot easier.

 

Haha, yeah. I definitely got lucky there!

I am hoping to get started on the basilidon next weekend (my usual 60hr week just turned into a 90-100), but I am hoping to knock out the ten man pack of skinks by then in whatever time I can claim for my therapy painting

My initial idea for the bastilidon though is to go off of the coloring of an eastern box turtle.

Like these guys!

 

This is one awesome looking Skink, I like the Dark with light touches, makes the color pop more.
I love the detail of the blue tongue.
Would be nice to see a full unit good luck. Also with the Bastilodon.

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Slowly but steadily getting there...

 

Aha! The famous Stilt-Walker spawning of Skinks!

Just kidding. Keep up the good work.

 

I'm not dead yet! And I have proof too!

Finished up my first batch of skinks (Sadly they molted and dropped their stilts). Happier with most of it compared to the initial proof skink. They need a good name with just the right amount of cheese (Nightfangs?), but I am happy enough that I will definitely come back around to paint another batch of eventually.

Starting with the new Skink alpha



And the whole pack on the hunt...



Skink Priest or bastiladon next, though if I go for the bastiladon, imma be another week before it is done.

 

Holy mahrlect! Look at those crests!!!! AMAZING!

 

I love this scheme! The shields, the crests/feet, the mouths, they all go together so so well and really pop out

 

Thanks! Humbly, color theory is definitely my strong suit, but I am working hard to catch up on the technique side of life (someday I will wet blend like a pro, someday).

 

Whelp, I decided to start cracking into the bastiladon, because gold effects can be easy as pie (erm, easier. Pie's are hard)

My main process for gold bits is an offshoot of Luke's of Geek Gaming Scenics. I can't find the original video anymore, but It is fast, looks good, and exceedingly forgiving to all skill levels.

I like it so much that I am going to break it down a little since I can't find the original video to post credit for.

Basically prime the model black; dry brush it heavily with a bronze metallic paint (I use warplock bronze); dry brush it slightly less heavily with a rich red toned gold metallic paint (gehenna's gold for me); coat it with a darker reddish brown wash (keeping with a citadel theme, I use reikland fleshshade); very very lightly dry brush the highlights with a buttery low pigment yellow gold (sigmarite works, but I just fell in love with retributor armour!).

I decide to take that process as far as dry brushing with gehenna's before diverging.


I wanted to show a little bit of the illumination from the crystal's focal points in the gold as well, so I moved up to a buttery gold, and then all the way to silver in sections right next to the crystal's killer glow. I did skip using a wash at any point on the gold; I could say that I didn't want to distract from the very subtle, likely to be unnoticed glow effects, but the reality is that it was just as much the curiosity on how it would shake out by not doing it.

 

Aaand momentum took me all the way through knocking out the crystal itself! (Which I definitely messed up, and tried cleaning up with isopropyl {which I went and messed up as well...don't paint tired}).