Plastic Fantastic!

The new plastic kits!

The moment is here, I now have a box of Assault Marines and the Codex in which to hone my skills and also keep the miniatures in their official colours.  The Codex is also a great reference for some kit-bashing conversions to try and make the models a bit more individual than continuously repetitive ranks of troop choices.

The Codex.  A perfect reference point for colour schemes

and kit-bash ideas

Assault Marines.  Ready to be hit hard by my brushes

Notes from my first impressions of painting the plastic medium:

Style still trying to be found....

Here we have another attempt but this time, I've committed to the plastic models.  First things first, plastic models are wonderful to paint.  The colour just flows over the model so smoothly and evenly, instantly giving a clean, crisp, layer.  I've learnt that 3-4 thin layers of red really gives a much better finish and is worth the extra bit of time.  The shame is, I got a bit too brush-happy with the washes and made it too dark and cloudy.  This model had 3 washes in total.  I'll try two next time.  The effort to then rectify the situation with re-application of the basecoat and then progressive highlights just didn't work.  The wash was too dark and the highlight colour was too light.  Orange just doesn't work against the dark wash.  This model was coated with a 50:50 wash of brown:black ink.  I've halted progress here and will put this model down to wastage.  The next one will have a 1:1:1 mix of brown:black:water.  The highlight will also be Evil Sunz Red as opposed to Troll Slayer Orange.  On a plus note, I really like how the gold is set-off against the red.  I'll try and make the next model appear as though the emblem is made of bone and see how that looks with the plastic model detail compared to previous efforts on the metal casts.

My first attempt at plastic and a few things

 learnt to improve on the next one

Okay, I think I'm getting there now with this more realistic/cartoon style balance.  With this model, I applied the mix I previously suggested of a wash of 1:1:1 of brown ink: black ink: water.  I do like it but the edge highlights still contrast too much with the standard colours of the armour (test area done on the back).  The chest plate isn't finished but I prefer these being gold.  I'll reserve the bone effect for the Death Company models.

One more effort will be made today with a 1:1 wash of brown ink: water.  I think this'll be perfect for the realistic/cartoon balance I'm after.   Although the style below is rather gritty looking and there's probably nothing wrong with it, I still feel the armour colours could be that touch more brighter and permit the edge highlights not to look out of place.

A technique that has worked particularly well on this model is just applying one wash and then selectively re-applying the wash only onto areas which will typically fall into shadow i.e behind the knee pads and around the feet.  This method will definitely be used from here-on.

Close but no cigar