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This week in Hobby Streak I switched from my love of monsters into infantry. This wasn’t entirely intentional–I got some of these models for Christmas and was just painting them because they looked like fun. But I also have some pretty solid goals for 2022 and I wanted to dive into them.
Day One, Two, and Three: Rubric Marines
This is what I got for Christmas and while I don’t (and have no desire to) play the Thousand Sons, I have always loved the Rubric Marines. I think they are one of the most iconic models in the Warhammer 40k range, enough that this is the third time I have tried painting them. The problem is that my hands are just so incredibly unsteady that I have a lot of struggles with the gold filigree on them–on all Chaos Marines.
I think I did a pretty good job with some of it–at least I colored inside the lines–but I feel like the details were all just so close together that I wasn’t able to much in the way of highlighting, shading and blending. Just another reason why I like big creatures.
In the box art the Rubric Marines’ headdresses are blue and yellow, which adds a lot to their Egyptian look, but I had trouble making the yellow distinct from the gold, so I changed it to red and I like the red.
Overall, these are just really frustrating because they look good from two feet away but when I see them in these pictures they’re just so… not good. I don’t know.
Day Four: Star Wars Legion Rebel Veterans
One of my goals for 2022 is to get into Star Wars Legion enough to have a force for myself and a force for my son, and I thought that something on Hoth would be cool–the siege on the Rebel base in Empire Strikes Back has to be my favorite sequence in all of Star Wars… I think. It’s hard to pick just one, but Empire Strikes Back is the best movie and this is the best battle in Empire Strikes Back.
(For the record, the other two sequences that are in the running for my favorite sequences in all of Star Wars are (1) the battle at the end of Return of the Jedi, which goes from Endor to space to throne room, (2) the lightsaber battle between Darth Maul, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn, and (3) the sequence with Ghost Luke in The Last Jedi (yes, I like that movie).
Anyway, these Rebel Veterans are really rewarding to paint. They have good detail and they’re really easy to make them look good. The fact that it’s all a muted white/tan color palette helps, but all of the important details pop really well. I’m happy with them.
These also gave me an excuse to bring out one of my favorite basing techniques which is using Woodland Scenics Flex Paste as the bulk of the snow and then sprinkling on The Army Painter Battlefield Snow to give it texture.
Day Five: Snowtroopers
I don’t like painting Stormtroopers generally because you either get them right or you get them very wrong. They’re almost entirely one white but lined with black. However, I figured out a trick, which is to do all of the lining not with a brush and paint but with a 005 Micron Pen.
I was also happy to see that these guys have some color variation. I didn’t remember it from watching the movies, but they–like the Rebel Veterans–have some tan in their paints and coats.
There was some nerdery controversy that the Snowtroopers show up in the end of The Last Jedi when that world is not snow but salt, and I have reconciled that in my mind as less of a plot problem and more of a naming problem. It seems strange that the Stormtroopers would have uniforms specific for every climate aboard every Star Destroyer, and my head canon is that the Snowtrooper uniforms are more of a Harsh Climate Trooper uniform. (This change also makes them significantly more usable in Star Wars Legion because it has become extremely clear to me in trying to make my desired forces that there just aren’t enough options to create a Hoth battle.)
(As a counter to my naming convention idea, there’s always the argument that in Rogue One there are Shoretroopers, which seems like an awfully specific thing to have, but there we go.)
Days Six and Seven: Arkanaut Company
I am taking a very brief break from Star Wars Legion (I’ll get back to it next week) and diving into another one of my 2022 goals, which is to create a 2000 point playable Age of Sigmar army. I have collected and painted a ton of Age of Sigmar models over the past few years but I have never actually had a completely playable army. The closest I got was probably with my Nighthaunt. (I have also painted a lot of Ogors, Stormcast and of course my Idoneth Deepkin army.)
So I decided I wanted to do Kharadron Overlords, because I have always loved dwarves in almost any incarnation, and I love the aesthetic of these steampunk airship/harpoon/metal beards/gatling gun dwarves.
I have to say that the pictures of the Arkanaut Company look better to me than the models do in real life, and I’m not sure why that is. (Another goal of 2022 is to get better at photography of miniatures.) In real life the silver highlights on thier metal bits REALLY stands out, while in the photos they look more natural. Ah well.
I have a few more Kharadron Overlords I’m going to paint next week but it will mostly be Star Wars Legion.
Remember, you can follow my progress on all of this Hobby Streak on my Instagram.