At last, here it is. After fighting a battle with the Chaos God of Internets that denied me access to it, I finally managed to break through and write this post. I know there are a few of you, oh dear readers, who waited for this, so without more delay - the 302nd Veteran Squad of 42nd Cadian!


As usual, starting with a group shot. Or two.




As you can see, the squad is totting melta guns. It also has a distinct lack of purity seals compared to the 301st. The reason for that is actually quite simple. I ran out of them, but ordered more from a bits store. I really like the look of SM purity seals on guardsmen, so didn't quite make my own. However when the order arrived it got misplaced. It was done together witha friend of mine and he left it in our local store for me to pick up.. And apparently it got lost with the load of stuff they have out there.

With the lack of purity seals I decided that it might even be for the better. I will come up with some other feature and each squad will have it's own distinctive element! Have I achieved my goal? You decide, when you watch further closeup shots after clicking below.


Here is the sarge. Not a sergeant, sarge. Just look at his expression. I just love that head (coming from the Cadian Command Squad sprue) with the cigar. I just wish I made him modular, so that he could hold a Power Fist instead of that pistol. *cough* Oh well.



The special weapon... specialists. Three meltagunners. The left one you should be already familiar with and the right one is the metal Cadian meltagunner. The one in the middle is a little homage to the 301st and certain plasma gunner. Only he has a bigger knife!



And the "regular" vets. There always has to be one kneeling, eh? The middle vet wasn't always a veteran actually. He was originally meant to act as a guardsman in a Platoon Command Squad, but since the loadout of that squad changed significantly he was suddenly unemployed. I though not to waste the model with FW parts and after small repaint (covering hte gold pieces pretty much) he's a veteran now. If only I hadn't ruined his face, sigh! The right one might be least inspiring of the vets, but take a look at his pistol! Did you know that, according to The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, each guardsman is equipped with an auto pistol? It would be quite fun to have that in-game, though I suppose that'd make us mini-marines.



And the last three. The left one is my all-time favourite, another excellent head from the Cadian CS. It's not as detailed as the bare head from the FW pack, but still looks mighty fine. The middle vet is funny. It's a first time I finally got to use that las-carbine you get on vehicle accessory sprue. Ironically, I always assumed it's a pistol and tried to use it as such with no luck. Only recently I've seen what exactly does the Steel Legion carry. I think it fits rather well, hes wounded so can't carry a regular lasgun, but a shorter, more compact carbine fits just right in one hand! And lastly the vet on the right, who is something of a squad medic. I wish vets could take medics, maybe as one of their doctrines (the cost is even the same). Perhaps it wouldn't be that good, but it'd definitely have a cool feel about it. Still, it's impossible, so he doesn't really do anything special game-wise, but he's just carrying a medic backpack and has fancy bags and equipment.



And that's it. I wodner if you caught the "defining feature". Perhaps not, as it did end up less obvious than I though. Still, it's the litanies written over their armour and weapons, kind of SM-esque. It does look quite good, but doesn't stand out like the Purity Seals.

Now, I am actually slowly making the 303rd. They're going to have much better "defining feature", very obvious. What is it? You will find out...

I could end here, but I though it'd be fun to throw in one more pic, since I've made this gaming table and all. Here is the 302nd on the battlefield! I wish I could show you their dedicated transport, but sadly I do not have that Chimera yet. I'll be sure to post it once I get it.


And that's it for 302nd. As goodbye words, here's a sneak peak of the next update.


And what I'm currently working on.

As always, thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your comments!

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And here is the final or semi-final post about the gaming board! This time painting commences, a disaster strikes and the day is saved! Sounds exciting, almost as though it wasn't just piece of board and a brush!


But to the point, the final stage of getting the gaming board done was to, of course, paint it. So I went to a hardware store and bought two pots of paint. One as a basecoat would be dark brown and had to be made on the spot (mixed specifically to what I chose). The other was ready-made, a colour resembling Bleached Bone. All with the purpose of the board matching the basing of the 42nd.


Perhaps it wasn't the best idea, but let's not rush the facts.


Here's the brown, it actually darkened quite a bit after drying, which I consider a good thing.


And the painting begun. After approximately half of table done I looked into the paint pot... and began to worry.


And I was right. I ran out of paint, when there was just a corner left. Luckily though, the remains in the pot could have been watered down and the paitning could continue. If you look here and the far right corner, you can see the paint being slightly lighter. It actually did darken to the same colour after drying out, I was quite concerned with that! Unfortunately tehre wasn't enough paint to get the edges... I might have to pick up another pot later, it will come in handy for terran as well, so that the hills and whatnot can match in colour.

In hindsight, I could've probably watered down the entire pot. Would make for easier paitning and perhaps it wouldn't obscure the fine sand, which it did, even though I did my best to prevent it.


And now the time for highlight, here's the inconspiciously looking pot of the "Bleached Bone".


Disaster strikes! The attempt to drybursh is wasted and goes totally wrong. Just look at that.


I'm not sure I can describe what I felt then. Definitely not on the blog, I mean, there might be children reading. Only later I came to conclusion the culprit was wet brush. Be careful with that!
Luckily later on I manage to get the drybrushing done right... mostly.. Excludng the attempt with a painting roll. Don't do that! Here's a shot of the board with the "drybrushing" done. I sure can't leave it like that, huh?

Luckily I've had means to cover for those mistakes to some extent. Since the idea was to get a flat board with terrain layn on it, I couldn't really cover it up with hills, which I surely would. But even before I planned ot using something else - static grass!

Using the same grass that I utilise on my bases I managed to cover up most of these areas in patches of not-really-green-and-not-lush grasslands. Phew! Looks quite good, though it surely could've been way better. I was actualyl surprised that the packed I've used for entire army so far still was enough to cover such vast areas AND have a lot left, meaning I could make another 100 guardsmen without buying another. Nice!


And here's the almost finished board, with some models on it for demonstration purposes. I think you can see that the bases of the models match it quite well.


I said almost finished as there's still a few things to do, like painting the crevises and perhaps adding more details there... I have some ideas lying in my bits box. Also the edges still could use painting as well. And then... terrain! Lots of terrain is to be made! Some time at the end of this year we'll probably buy the CoD Imperial Sector and make the rest ourselves. Got a few hills here that would need detailing and painting, great looking trees my cousin made for a wood and there's also a lot of styrofoam left for more! I'll surely keep on posting as the terrain progresses and give you more shots as it develops. Also expect a battle report played on that table some time in the near future, though I'll have to smack my cousin to actually paint more of his models and stop using Grey Knights as Boyz and =I= Stormtroopers as Lootas!

I'll gladly hear your opinions, suggestions and hints on the board and future terrain!

Oooh and one more thing. The squad on the left on the last shot? It's the 302nd Veteran Squad fully finished. Expect a post within the next 24 hours. And now back to the flying thingy...


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And the project of the gaming table continues. Here's a recap of yesterday's progress. The sanding is completed and some steps in linking the quarters are made. After this the table is more or less ready to play - but that doesn't mean it's finished!

Here's a shot of all four quarters with sand on them.


But all the parts are still separate and there's now way to link them into something stable. Of course you can lay them next to each other, but it would be better if some sort of linking was possible to strengthen the construction and prevent accidents with onepart slipping and falling down with whatever it was on it..

This little thing should help out...




Of course, hinges cannot link all the parts together, it's physically impossible. But as one edge is made with the L-shapes connecting it goes together quite nicely. Thus the quarters will be put together by the longer edges using these hinges.

The quarters have to be put together as close as they're supposed to be to make exact measures as to where to put the hinges. Also if you'll be doing something like that remember the hinges have to be parallely to the edges of the board, if they're slightly off something might break!



A problem arises however. The board is made of thin plywood and styrofoam. As such it is impossible to actually use screws to attach it. At least not regular screws. What's needed are screws with nuts, but that needs access from both sides of the plywood. And thus, knife goes into play again.


Once the hole is made it's easy to attach the hinge to one side.

I'm also considering doing something to that "maintenance hole", possible just sinking it all in PVA glue.

The proble was attaching it to the other half later. It sure took an agility of an eldar to hold it all together straight while attempting to get that silly screw through the nut evenly! But after much cursing and taking strange positions to hold t in place with legs the work is done!

This is how the quarters are connected, making the table composed of two halves now.



And here is the entire board as it is now.

The picture doesn't show slight uneven areas. The bottom right quarter as you look at it now has deformed slightly. The issue however can be fixed. I'll have to put something heavy on it and leave it for all day and it should go back to shape. There are also slight interspaces between the quarters, but it cannot really be avoided. I'll try to aybe fix them up later with sand and such. Though even the GW board seems to have the borders of its tiles visible!

Anyway, what remains to do is pretty much only painting. I'll probably do that in the afternoon today, if it won't be too hot and the sun won't be too annoying.

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Time for the final installement in the I Hate Right Hands series! This time I'll simply show you how to paint the 42nd Badlands color scheme along with stage-by-stage pictures and some tricks regarding painting in general.

Let's start with the general pointers on painting. Just a few basic things I'm sure most of you know already, but it never hurts to repeat those.

• When undercoating remember to stir the can well beforehand. Also remember the weather influences how the paint will behave. Never do it when there's too high (or too low) humidity! Also keep an eye out on atmospheric pressure, as it might also influence it. The last factor is obviously temperature, below zero doesn't really work too well, melting sun doesn't help either. Additionaly make sure models are free from stains. If they're metal it might be a good idea to throw them into solvent liquid to clear off the grease that might've gathered on them.
  
• Remember to water down your paints. Fancy sites like cmon will tell you that they have to be the consistency of milk. I don't really know when are they so I just take a brushful of water or two and mix it with the paint either on the palette or on the paint lid and it works for me. Keep in mind you probably shouldn't use the water from whatever container you use to clear the brush, especially if you painted with a metallic paint before!
• As for metallic paints I tend to replace water in the jar right away after I finish using them. Professionals speak of having to separate jars, which works as well. I hate getting those tiny metal flakes into other paints by accident!
• Take care of your brushes and they'll serve you for long. Never let the paint get into the area where the fiber are joint. Remember to always wash the brush throughoutly. It's a good idea to use an old brush to move paints from pot onto the mixing palette instead of the good one. Same goes for drybrushing. Apparently washing them in some hair shampoo from time to time is a good thing, but I've only tried it once so far and can't really say what are the results just yet.

I guess those do it. And now I present to you the 42nd Cadian Badland fatigues color scheme! When I paint my minis I always break the process down into a couple of stages, which are basically the basecoat of a given color and then its highlits. You will find the stages explained at the bottom of the post, which is also a summary of the painting, which is much easier to read and look at, once you know the deal. And now, the tutorial itself!


Start off by priming the model black

Fatigues.
First start with applying a basecoat of Graveyard Earth. I use several very thin layers of it, to get a good coverage, while at the same time not obscuring the details. Then highlight nearly everything, but the most receeded areas with Desert Yellow. Continue highlighting, leaving some of Desert Yellow, with a 50:50 mix of Desert Yellow and Bleached Bone. I'll remind you of paints being thinned down - if you do that it will look way better. Finally pick up the most outstanding areas with pure Bleached Bone.

Armour
Apply a basecoat of Scorched Brown. The make a mix of 70:30 Scorched Brown and Graveyard Earth and apply highlits to the edges of the armour. You can make that "edge" wider, since the color should be very similar to the basecoat and the next highlight - 30:70 Scorched Brown and Graveyard Earth mix should be thinner than the previous. I also apply these highlights on top of the helm. Afterwards apply the final highlight of Graveyard Earth, myself however I only apply it from one direction, to imitate sunlight.

Brown Leather
Previously this was done after the metallics, but I've learned it's much better in that order, since it's hard not to paint on the tiny metal buttons on the leather items. First paint a basecoat of Bestial Brown. Then wash it with Ogryn Flesh and, once it has dried out, Devlan Mud. Once upon a time I did it with Flesh Wash, sadly it is no longer produced. Both generate slightly different effects, but both look good. Finally, apply highlights of Bestial Brown onto outstanding elements.

"Green"
"Green" covers all green things on the model. On th eregular guardsmen it was just his canteen, but vets also have cloth rugs and grenades. It's easy to paint, start with a basecoat of Catachan Green. Then make a mix of Catachan Green and add very little Rotting Flesh. It will lighten the color up a lot, careful! Highlight with that mix and then add another small ammount of Rotting Flesh to the mix and use that to apply second highlight. The values given at the end might be off, I always do that roughly.

White cloth
And you got me, there's no white cloth on this model and not on any of the 4 vets that are unpainted. But since this mark on the backpack is supposed to be white and it's painted exactly the same... Here it is: Basecoat of Adeptus Battlegrey and highlight of Skull White. Yep, that's it. Be warned though, you will most likely need several layers of Skull White to get a good coverage!

Metal
Another thing made trivial with Citadel Washes. Basecoat with Boltgn Metal, wash with Badab Black and highlight with Chainmail. That's it!

Skin
Now the most detailed part. First apply a few thin coats of Dwarf Flesh to get a good coverage, afterwards wash with Ogryn Flesh. Paint the eye sockets Chaos Black. Then paint on them with Skull White, while at the same time picking up teeth. The paint the pupils with Chaos Black. Once you're done with the eyes, higlight the face with Dwarf Flesh, which you can also use to paint eyelids and cover up any mistakes there. Lastly apply a final highlight of a 70:30 Dwarf Flesh and Elf Flesh mix.



Details
The model is nearly done, now's the time for the fine details. Each one is painted differently as the details are myriad of things including the aquilas everywhere, the squad/Cadian markings, knife handles and also purity seals and glasses (which are absent on that particular model). There isn't really much to it and all the steps are described in the later breakdown part of the article.
The only thing not there is the meltagun muzzle. I painted it drybrushing Bestial Brown onto it, washing with Ogryn Flesh and then drybrushing Chaos Black. Ron over at FtW had a short article on that too, check it out!

Base
Sadly I have no shots on that. The lightning apparead so bad in the shots it just ruined the color completely and the pcitures were rendered unusable. But it's not a hard thing. First read this tutorial on cmon about making the bases. It does include a painting guide as well, though I paint it slightly differently. First a basecoat of Graveyard Earth. Then a wash of Vallejo Smoke INk was supposed to come, but I was unable to find Vallejo paints anywhere... After consulting a bit I made my own wash - it's a mix of Scorched Brown and a little Chaos Black made into ink using this method. After it dries out, drybrush it with Bubonic Brown (Desert Yellow works fine too!) then Bleached Bone and afterwards drybrush the edges of stones with Skull White. Finally, add some foilage and voila! You're done.

Black leather
Basically this is the step where you repaint the areas which you wished to remain black that you accidentaly overpainted in one of the previous steps. This includes primarly boots, as they tend to get messy after drybrushing the base. Additionaly I highlight the boots a little with Adeptus Battlegrey, but nothing too extensive.


And that's it! Here we have a finished mini.

The only thing left is to varnish it. (Well, technically the mini in the pictures is still missing foaliage, I know!)

• Fatigues
  Basecoat: Graveyard Earth
  Highlights: Desert Yellow, 50:50 Desert Yellow/Bleached Bone, Bleached Bone
  
• Armour
  Basecoat: Scorched Brown
  Highlights: 70:30 Scorched Brown/Graveyard Earth, 30:70 Scorched Brown/Graveyard Earth, Graveyard Earth
• White cloth
  Basecoat: Adeptus Battlegrey
  Highlights: Skull White
  
• Brown leather
  Basecoat: Bestial Brown
  Highlights: Ogryn Flesh wash, Devlan Mud wash, Bestial Brown
  
• "Green"
  Basecoat: Catachan Green
  Highlights: 80:20 Catachan Green/Rotting Flesh, 70:30 Catachan Green/Rotting Flesh
  
• Metal
  Basecoat: Boltgun Metal
  Highlights: Badab Black wash, Chainmail
  
• Flesh
  Basecoat: Dwarf Flesh
  Highlights: Ogryn Flesh wash, Dwarf Flesh, 70:30 Dwarf Flesh/Elf Flesh
  Eyes: Chaos Black, Skull White, Chaos Black
  
• Details
  Aquilas
  Colors used: Graveyard Earth, Desert Yellow, Bleached Bone
  Knife Handle
  Colors used: Catachan Green, Rotting Flesh
  Purity Seals - Seal
  Colors used: Red Gore, Baal Red wash, Blood Red
  Purity Seals - Parchment
  Colors used: multiple higlights of Snakebite Leather going into Bleached Bone
  Glasses
  Colors used: Regal Blue, multiple highlights up til 50:50 Regal Blue\Skull White
  
• Base
  Basecoat: Graveyard Earth
  Highlights: "Smoke Ink" wash, Bubonic Brown, Desert Yellow, Skull White
  Smoke Ink = 80:20 Scorched Brown/Chaos Black
  
• Black leather
  Basecoat: Chaos Black
  Highlights: Adeptus Battlegrey

And this concludes the IHRH series, thanks for staying with me for its duration and reading! No doubt there will be other tutorials on painting and modelling in the future, written as I get the ideas. I am already considering an additional IHRH article though, part 5.5. I suppose you can guess what it will be about. Also, if you have any requests regarding the series, go ahead and say them, I'll be more than glad to write about the thing you're interested in!

And a quick shot of the next thing to do. And no, it's not the book, I've read it already. I'll probably scribble something about it too, but let me just tell you it is awesome. I loved every bit of it! Also the table building log will continue tomorrow. It was way too hot to work today and only in the later afternoon I bought more glue along with som means to link the parts... but more on that soon!




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Another day brightens outside and another day of work begins, but first a recap of yesterdays progress!


The first thing was to sculpt some terrain into the board itself, not too much but to make it appear a bit better than just empty flat surface. The styrofoam isn't that easy to carve in and sculpt, though the extruded one has it way better than the regular one. In the comments under the last post David warned me about carving into it, thanks! Too bad I read that comment after I actually started to do it.. In the end however nothing wrong happened, aside from me getting my finger cut which is annoying me as I type now, groan , and the crevasses (how do you spell that..) look good. The most important thing to remember is that you have a really sharp knife. The alternative is to have a very hot knife. Both of these things make styrofoam cutting really easy. Here's a shot of the table as it looked after the sculpting.


And the projects continues


Here are some closeup shots of the terrain.




Once that was done it was time for next step - sanding. Things needed at this stage are as follows:

Woodworking glue, I prefer it to PVA glue when gluing sand, simply because it's easier to apply and much thinner. It's also way easier to clean off. The other things include a brush. That piece of cardboard was there to act as a brush as well, since the brush was actually dirty with glue, but it ended up working fine, so the cardboard wasn't used at all.
Price: 13 zł = £2,68 (for the glue)


Obviously to apply sand to the table you will need sand itself! My estimations say about 4 medium-sized jars of sand should be enough for the entire surface.

There was a problem with the sand however. It isn't modelling sand, it's construction sand and as such its mixed with a lot of small rocks and similar and too large grains. A riddle was neccessary but there was none about (other than a kitchen one and that was out of question). But I found a way around it with a jar, a screw and a hammer!

Once the tools were prepped the work could begin. Sand is applied to the table just as it is to bases of the minis. Drop the glue onto the surface and then brush it around making an even coa that covers the area completely. It was actually quite hard not to leave brush marks but I am unsure wether its a fault of the brush or the glue being too thick. Woodworking glue can be thinned down by water, you may try that, but don't add too much of it and it takes a lot of mixing as well. On the other hand those brush marks might work as terrain,a fter all land isn't totally flat, right? Here's the surface covered with glue:


Then I applied the sand. Using the jar was just like shaking a huge salt cellar. It was actually quite fun. It also allowed to dose the sand somewhat and minimised the losses, not a bad thing.

Remember you don' want to cover the entire table with glue at once. Before you're done and start applying sand the starting area might dry out a little, especially if you're doing that outdoors in warm weather. As such it is better to work gradually, apply the glue, the sand, then brush the glue onto next area and so on.
Here a table quarter with the sanding completed:


I managed to sand one more quarter and then the glue bottle ran out. Thing to remember, the 4'x6' area needs to big glue bottles to cover it entirely. As such, before I start working today again, I'll need to go pick up more glue. Once I get it though, I should be able to finish sanding today and maybe even start painting!




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