Wednesday, 17 March 2010

First Thousand Son - Project Change XXII

I'm continuing my focus on the Thousand Sons with the classic 1990 Jes Goodwin Thousand Son.

Jes Goodwin's first Thousand Son

I've got ten of them! It's taken months and months of trawling through eBay, buying one here and one there and now I finally got enough for a complete squad without paying more than a couple of quid each. They've stripped back beautifully too. In fact, I have one too many (the last auction I won was for a group of four) so I can test a second scheme out before deciding how the squad'll be done.

As I've just started reading A Thousand Sons, I thought I'd try implementing the colour scheme on the excellent Neil Roberts cover artwork.

A Thousand Sons

As you can see, Neil's interpretation of the Heresy-era Thousand Sons features quite understated headpieces, leaving plenty of scope for them to get corrupted by the time the Battle of Terra comes.

This is an awesome model. The early 1980s Chaos Renegades were sculpted by the Michael and Alan Perry and Kev Adams. This was at a time when Chaos had a yet undeveloped visual identity, and so most models were unique mindfracks with crazy bespoke armour. They involved a lot of cross-over from the design of the 1980s Chaos Warrior, with elements or H. R. Giger thrown in. Though the sculpting quality was a tad primitive, they were full of a vibrant creativity. Here are two. (Hell, I've been whining about doing red without it looking Khornate too long now so I just went and painted a World Eater.)

Retro Renegades

Then, in 1990 a young Jes Goodwin came along and produced a renegade model for each major Chaos God. At about the same time Jes was working on the then-new mk7 Space Marine armour (which endures through to this day), and he took a lot of the design elements through into these Renegades. So much so they'd not look out of place in modern 40K armies, despite being 20 years old.

Jes Goodwin's cult marines

Interestingly, this is the first type the Egyptian motif appears for Tzeentch. Prior to this, Thousand Sons were just gribbly fungus bird marines.

And finally, I'm not sure if I'm cheating the terms of Project Change here (i.e. no conversions), but rather than model the first of the Marines with the Chaos Renegade backpack, I chose the mk7 Imperial backpack. Neil Robert's illustration doesn't feature the debased stabilser jets of Chaos backpacks (which I've written about at length here). Ah well, I've got another nine to paint with the correct backpacks.

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Posted by Curis at 3:44 PM

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Weathering Space Marines - An Experiment

I've been struggling to work out how to use Weathering Powders lately. I want to learn how to use them to push forward my painting ability, so I thought the best way was to get in and experiment. And rather than paint something fresh and then weather it, I found an old squad of Rogue Trader Space Marines in my cabinet to dabble with.

Weathered Rogue Trader Space Marines

Each of these guys represents a different approach. Dabbing dried powder into the recesses, making a thick paste to cover boots, blending different powders to get multi-hued dirt - but by far the best approach I found was watering the powder down into a thin wash and letting it dry. It doesn't overpower the paintjob, and when it dries it dries opaque in the recesses, making it look entirely different from an ink wash or dip.

Interestingly, you can use this washing approach with colours lighter than those the models are painted in.

Here's a comparison shot of a weathered Marine with an unweathered one.

Weathered Rogue Trader Space Marines

These are done with the Forge World set weathering set. Their three-page quick guide is absolutely no use whatsoever. Unless of course, you find big blank spaces highly educational.

Weathered Rogue Trader Space Marines

Weathered Rogue Trader Space Marines

Weathered Rogue Trader Space Marines

Anyone got any tips on how they do their weathering? I'm eager to learn.

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Posted by Curis at 3:04 PM


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