Chest of Colors forum

Hello all, this is my first stab at posting some work here. I appreciate feedback and new ideas a lot.

I am currently working on an Adeptus Mechanic themed force, but one that has turned to Chaos and infiltrated by Daemons. To that end, it is full of machines and demons. However, I have been concentrating more on the machine side of things since June.

Here's my latest work, as sold by ramshackle Games - a 'boring machine', which I use as a Termite.
Click to see full-sized image

It's not very exciting!

I finished the hazard lines since the picture was taken, but welcome any ideas for further weathering the model and breaking up the monotony of the metallics.

There's 4 on the go, acting as transports for my Skitarii Hypaspists (aka Tech Guardsmen):

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

These all look great, and i love the whole background behind the force. It's different and unique in a very good way, I'd love to see more of the force itself

a very serious army, well done

I only have two comments: the warning stripes aren't 100% straight. Did you paint them by freehand? It's difficult to do, especially because the area is so large. Maybe you should have picked one of the smaller rings for the sings? Maybe you could do some additional weathering (paint chipping off) to hide the mistakes a bit and to make it more realistic.

The second thing is that it doesn't really look like it has come out of the ground: it looks like a structure which has been placed ON the ground, not coming OUT OF IT. This is probably caused by the sculpt, but I think you could improve the look by using a brownish color for the dirt and then also use this on the vehicle...

Great work so far.

The idea of a Chaos Adeptus Mechanic themed force is just great, keep them coming

what Corvus said is more or less what I wanted to see.

It's great to see such an inspired concept for an army, and it surely looks good. now the question is: does it look like what it was supposed to look? if the things came out from the ground, they should be all dirty, soiled, and covered with lumps/patches of ripped ground. especially the drills should be covered and filled with soil, as they just pushed through the ground. Don't you think?

Go to any construction site and see what construction machines (excavators?) look like - especially the parts which work in dirt all the time.
Or check any photos of mining equipment.

As for the miniatures - I would add some more highlights on them. Deep contrasts of light and shadow are what makes a model look a whole lot better from distance. And gaming models are usually viewed from distance, aren't they?

Good job, keep it coming and make it even better.

Thanks for the comments.

Termites:
I went for a grey base to keep in line with the rest of the army. My bases are:
Charadin Granite > Adeptus Battlegrey > Dheneb Stone. Washed with Devlan Mud after the base coat.

So, I kept this for the dirt around the drill, with a 'pretty' if unrealistic, red outline for some sort of heat signature.

All the lines were done by hand, so far 3 termites finished that way. Naturally, some are fatter than others due to this.

I need to go over the yellow for highlighting and to clean up. It was painted yellow first with black lines on top.

Click to see full-sized image

Sorry if the pictures aren't great!

The army has been a crazy idea from the start, but intended to be playable. For the past year I've used a custom ruleset, but plan to make it usable in regular Codex (Imperial Guard no doubt). This explains why the models look quite uniform, but not painstakingly painted to a higher level.

Click to see full-sized image

I like the idea to add dirt/rubble onto the drill itself - I shall get experimenting!

add the effect of scratched paint on the yellow/black striped part

mahon wrote:add the effect of scratched paint on the yellow/black striped part

you know - with the sponge to get a "random" effect

Good idea! Just hope I don't overuse that as it's getting onto all my models for this army now.

Here's one of my 'Myrmidons', built from a Defiler kit with attached Penitent Engine pilot.

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

I feel it's a bit monotone, so would welcome any ideas for getting more colour into this model.

I think the person in this machine should get a brighter, more contrasting color, to draw the attention.

And you've also been cutting some corners when it came down to mold line cleaning, but if it's for the tabletop then I forgive you