Early Beginnings - First KotE HQ Choices

Alright, pumping another one of these out. In a way, I'm trying to get these out of the way. All the models of my Space Marine chapter represent a time when I was absolute crap at painting, and in a rush to get them all done. I'd much rather focus on the stuff that doesn't make me look completely incompetent, but well...it's part of the story, & part of my growth into what I do now (which still isn't amazing, but at least it's not terrible).

This was my original chapter master, librarian and Captain Sicarius, since the Knights of the Eclipse are technically an Ultramarines successor. Was gonna do blood angels, but no thunderfire cannons over there, so...nope.

Now that I've 'upgraded' to a semi-converted Marneus Calgar for my chapter master, here is Captain Clegane. He's another of my earlier, sloppier attempts at shading and blending. Sword 'effects' done with light brush strokes of orange followed by lighter strokes of yellow, followed by accidentally-not-so-light strokes of white. Added the dead termagant head on the base as a 'fluff' centerpiece, since the lore of the chapter involves enmity with the tyranids (since I've got about 10k in them too...). Still pretty fond of that, even if it's so caked with paint you can't make out the detail.

Here's Captain Not-Sicarius, painted before I ever tried to make a glow effect with the plasma pistol, and before I had a clue in hell what drybrushing was (Yes, the base is dried, but I did all of the snow basing after the army was finished; til that point, all the bases were black and bare. Yes, basing 200 models was tedious as fuck). 

And last, here's the company's designated Codicier. Caked on paint again (lot of that early on...dark days indeed). Loin cloth turned out ok though. Slightly deviated from the Codex Astartes on color scheme; all the Librarians are white to represent the purity they must maintain when dealing with the warp. Overall I was proud of this model; still am to an extent. Decent highlights on the cloth and torso, good (well, better) brush control on the axe details...May not look like it, but I *did* water down my paints here. However, this was before I had a clue in hell how to paint white, so I had to do about 5 layers of the crap before the black (STUPID) primer didn't show through. 

Early Beginnings - KotE Assault Marines

Alright, time for another oldie.

These guys were some of the first ones that I started shading, and I did them about a year go. Early on, my first shading attempts were very sloppy. While I now have the brush control to localize the ink washes, that wasn't always the case. So I'd take the nuln oil, and wash the entire model with it. This resulted in somewhat splotchy colors on multiple occasions, so try to localize it when you can (if you're certain you can cover all the areas you should). 

Another thing I figured out is that druuchi violet actually makes a PERFECT shade for red. Complements the colors nicely. 

Still no decent highlights or detail work, but we'll get there.

Early Beginnings - Knights of the Eclipse

Alright, time for my first post. This one's a huge blast from the past for me, since these guys were the first 40k models I ever painted, back in 2009. I played Warhammer fantasy back in 2004, but that lasted for maybe a week, so I don't count it. Here's the first three.

As I'm sure you can see, they're not much to look at. No shading work, caked paint, poor basing and sloppy brushwork. This is what should be expected when you first start. Expect this to be the best that can be done for quite a while; it took months before I got past this stage. With that said, the process is fun, so I don't want it to sound all bad.

The big issue here was experience and a lack of materials. I only really had a basic basing brush to use for the whole model, and shading was a completely unknown concept to me. You'd be amazed what a couple layers of really thinned down paint or ink can do to create depth in models. 

The best advice I can give beginners is the same advice most hobbyists will give you early on: THIN. YOUR. PAINTS. For the first year of painting I never thinned a single one of my paints. I didn't think there would be a difference; as long as I was careful with the paint application, there shouldn't be any problems. I WAS WRONG. Without thinning, the paint gets caked on, streaks, and overall makes the finished product look shoddy. That is the first, and my intention is for it to be the last, time I mention paint thinning. Everyone will tell you to do it, and it doesn't need to be repeated. From here on out, it's a given that it should be done almost every single time.