My Empire log

[Home Of CadaveR]

Greetings to all! I\'ve recently decided to create an Empire army, or to put it more correctly, to make my models playable, not just sitting there eating dust. So I think that creating a log here would give me the nessesary motivation to keep me going, inspire me and improve some things.

I have made some progress and I would like to get your feedback cause I really want to make a nice army since Empire is my personal favourite ...

Here\'s what I already done then...

My Cannon







My Nuln Handgunners (click on the thumbs for larger pictures)

WIP Steam Tank

I\'m currently working on my other artillery stuff, the mortar, the Helblaster and the Helstorm... I kinda decided to go with the Nuln theme for starters since I love the gunpowder theme ...

So, tell me what you think...

 

[freakinacage]

cool stuff, keep us posted

 

[Friar]

Lookin nice thus far I love the metal on the cannon looks superb, definatly shaping up to be a very swank Empire army.

 

[Home Of CadaveR]

Thank you so much for your kind remarks.
More stuff are done as we speak. Updates soon

 

[QuietiManes]

Yeah, I really like that cannon too. And the basing.

I think the army looks a bit bland though (even though it is painted fairly well IMO). Grey/black and earthy brown really destroys all the details on the figures. It all just blends together when you look at it. What could be done to add some contrast and visual distinction? Well, a couple things I can think of, you could highlight the edges of the black with another colour such as light blue, light green. Could probably just do a quick ink wash to accomplish this since alot of the edges are so light already. Or you could add some colours in there somewhere. Repaint the sacks and straps a flashy colour, repaint the bits of the shirts sticking out from the collars around the neck a bright colour, same with the belts/sash\'s, the handgunners with the red stockings is a step in the right direction I think. The feathers could use a couple highlights, just a few here and there to make them stand out a bit more, in an orange or yellow (white makes pink so no good to highlight red, on the off chance you didn\'t realize).

If you\'ve only painted 10 or 20 models then I\'d probably not bother going back and redoing parts of the models, I\'d just keep it in mind for the rest of the army, to add some defining characteristics. If I was you that is, I\'m lazy and 15 or so models out of several dozen in a standard sized force, won\'t be visible at all and will just add some variation in the end anyway. This is just my opinion of course, I don\'t imagine Nuln would be too colourful but a touch more wouldn\'t hurt (I figure that\'s why you held back). If you really want to stay almost all black then you could try the edge highlighting in different colours, do the belts in brown, the shirts in red, the pants in white/grey, for example.

Can\'t wait to see the rest of your artillery and banners.

Cheers:beer:

 

[Home Of CadaveR]

Thank you for your thourough remarks.

The army is not entirely Nuln oriented. As much as I love the fluff, plain black is something that I couldnt follow it through the entire army paint sceme. I only thought that my handgunners should be of Nuln colours. All the other regiments will come from different Empire states so as to try different colours and to prevent the boredom effect.

There is one thing though, the pictures I\'m afraid dont show the highlights very clearly and that is why they tend to appear plain. I\'ll try to make better pics (photography isnt my best).

Anyhow, I\'m working on the Steam Tank now, and I\'ve finished the scenic base that will accompany it... have a look and tell me what you think

The scenic base

finished model ready to be primed


And thats my other artillery piece Im working on... soon I\'ll post the final painted versions of my Helblaster and Mortar

Helstorm ready to be primed

 

[NickyBlade]

Nice bases! I can\'t wait to see that steam tank painted up.

 

[hckling]

Looking nice Horrible mold lines on that orc on the steam tank base though!

Keep up the good work, will be interesting to see what this will look like when done

 

[Home Of CadaveR]

Aaah yes, I found some nasty mould lines that appeared through the lens and that I haven\'t noticed earlier. They are taken care of as we speak.

I have forgotten to show you my Engineer on the mechanical steed.

Tell me what you think and vote for him here : http://www.coolminiornot.com/182289

 

[QuietiManes]

One go of 8 hours? Is that like 7 hours of work and a lunch break or was it a 9+ hour day? lol

Nice work either way. Did you drill out the gun barrels? One angle looks like you might have and the other it looks like you didn\'t. Helps sell the illusion, if you didn\'t, think about it. Maybe a glint/highlight or a glow effect in the mounts eyes. Can\'t think of anything else, it\'s pretty snazzy as is.

I do think all mechanical items should have a \"Made in Taiwan\" (or any other random contry with comedic value, maybe Cathay to stay in the warhammer setting?) stamped on them somewhere fairly out of sight and tiny, so you really have to look hard to find it. But that\'s not specific to your figure or all that serious.

Cheers

 

[Home Of CadaveR]

haha lol yes I had some breaks for lunch and make some coffee but overall I finished him in one day (painting and not finishing the base)

The barrels are already drilled from the miniature itself so no need to do that.

As for the glow, yes I thought of it but I think that I like it better this way.

As for the mechanical parts, they have a small tag that says; warpstone not included... you think that I have to worry?

 

[Manus]

This is looking to be a really well painted army, always nice when people do that. Keep us posted

 

[Home Of CadaveR]

Updates 28-9

Hi there everybody! I\'m still working on my project and more specifically on my beloved Steam Tank. As I primed the model I found out that unfortunately some of the detail was lost due to its previous bad condition. I therefore decided to paint it in NMM so as to restore some detail as much as possible. This was really tricky to be honest as this is the first time I am trying to paint something in NMM and I would really like to get some feedback on how I am working it on, so I am posting these WIPs.

 

[Home Of CadaveR]

not so many replies, but thank you all who have seen my progress so far.

Time for some more updates then! I finally finished the main part of my Steam Tank and I can say that apart from some finishing touches, it is mostly finished! What do you think...?

 

[QuietiManes]

lol Great banner. All cheery and bright on one side and then gloomy and menacing on the other. Very amusing! I was all like \"oh no, what has happened here?\" when I saw the first pic, then I scrolled down to the next and was like \"ah, much better! now I understand\" That gold head on the cannon is a beauty.

The only 2 things I could suggest to improve would be the rust and the gradation on the armour panels. It is really noticeable where your layers were done, especially on the \"bright banner\" side of the tank. Maybe a couple washes or glazing layers would hide the layers. Could try alternating a darker then a lighter wash of very thin inks or paints.

The rust (how solid and uniform it is, it probably looks absoloutely FINE in real life) I didn\'t even notice until someone pointed it out in the \"what are you working on\" thread. But now that I\'ve seen it, it does poke me in the eye fairly hard. If you do the washes for the armour panel, that will tone them down quite a bit, then you\'d just need to come back and touch them up a bit, but when you do, just make sure to break it up, a dot here, a line there, not a solid sort of field of drips. It should have some lighter and darker areas, different colours could work too. If you don\'t wash the armour plates, I think it would be worth taking a couple minutes to define some details on the rust marks still. A couple really dark lines or dots here and there and a few lighter marks splashed around, maybe even a metalic colour so it looks like you\'re seeing the armour under the rust, will really bump it up to the next level...I think.

Anyway, can\'t wait to see what you paint up next. Cheers

 

[Home Of CadaveR]

Thank you so much for your thorough remarks! I will try to take them into consideration. The banner turned out pretty nice glad you like it!

I\'m working on the boiler right now, soon I will update the pics

cheers:beer:

 

[Cleezy]

Hey great work on the army so far, i had a empire army as i loved what could be created but i had so many ideas and not enough money to see it out. So i sold it and kept the ideas on paper for another time.

Anyway the work looks great so far good work

 

[NickyBlade]

Great work! The banner turned out beautiful! It always amazes me when I see an awesome banner like that how on earth you guys can get so much detail on them...