I figured I would start this blog by showing of where I got started and where I ended up after experimenting with the color scheme, different techniques, brushes, brands of paint etc.
Sadly I never took any pictures of these initial trial and error runs and most of the models I painted were stripped afterwards to match with the scheme I finally settled on. But I'll include a picture of the one unit that was saved and simply retired rather than stripped and redone.
This was the very first unit I picked up and painted. As you can see I tried to go for a kind of hoplite look giving them Corinthian helmets and round shields. I was also planning on adding spears rather than swords but I could never find any suitable ones and my attempts at modelling/altering the ones I had ended up in a few spectacular failures. It was good practice non the less I suppose.
I apologize about the poor pictures and lighting, I tried to create a makeshift light box. It's better than nothing but I'll see if I can't purchase one or make an improved version of mine in the near future.
I was never really happy with the paint job either, sure It was my very first attempt at this but It just seemed sloppy to me and I knew I could do better.
And there was also the matter of the colors themselves. I had envisioned a really bright almost sky blue turquoise. Similar to what I thought I had seen in some of the pictures from the GW website and box art. So I asked the staff at my local gaming store how I would best go about painting the Celestial Vindicators. They recommended a color scheme from one of those painting guides GW sell, and that seemed good enough to me so I got started with a base of Sotek Green and a few other colors. It looked decent enough, but far from that very vibrant and bright turquoise I was going for. Back to the store I went and pretty much grabbed every hue of turquoise I could find. After about 4 or 5 test models I settled on one I was pleased with, done with the Light Turquoise from Vallejo Model Color on a white primer rather than black.
This is what that looks like, the model isn't entirely done, his tabard and the grip of the hammer are examples of places I still need to finish up.
So this is where I am right now, about done with my 10 liberators from the starter set that I got cheap on ebay. I've also painted up a Heraldor that I picked up at the store for no reason what so ever, he looked sweet on the box and I grabbed him. The joy of not knowing how stuff plays is that I can just purchase whatever I fancy without worrying too much about viability in matches.
The unit of 4 liberators along with the Prime from the previous pictures is also when I discovered that humidity and priming don't go together very well. I spent a good hour just scrubbing them trying to remove the primer that had clogged up the entire models. I got a lot of it of but you can still see how the edges and lines are not as crisp as they should. I think I managed to recover to the point where I don't mind it from a far, I'll definitely play them and enjoy it without thinking about it.
I think I'll end it there, need to get some painting done whilst I have some time to spare. I'll see if I can't get an update out soon-ish to post either a picture of everything together, a step by step or perhaps my experiments with bases so far.
If you managed to get through my wall of texts 'till the end.. I'm impressed.
Cheers!
Mark
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