The Project Continues...

So here's the preliminary layout of my project. That is half my table, with my small collection of unfinished terrain pieces. I've kind of evolved it into a battle board type project similar to those brought to Adepticon. Got an 1850pt Army there, more posts on the army itself later. For now let's focus on the visual elements. The vast majority of the models don't even have a basecoat, which is disappointing, but I think I've chosen some of the more exciting models to paint so assuming I finish it, the board should look pretty awesome. Let's get into some close-ups.




To the immediate left you have what currently looks like a scorched wood with some Rangers in it and some shiny scorpions. Most of the Rangers are painted (poorly). Need to finish off the woods, flock the trees, and then paint up the units. The Striking Scorpions will have the standard aspect warrior color scheme, while the Rangers sport my Bleached Bone/Ice Blue color scheme under their chameleoline cloaks. I'll be honest, the cloaks could use some work and of course I need to flock the bases.
The Next element of the army are these Swooping Hawks on a hill. Looks like they just landed and the Exarch is pointing to where he wants to skyleap next. (I know, annoying right?) Of course you can't see any of this because of the glare. As for the hill itself, it will be painted green, and I've got some plastic plantlife that I want to glue onto the hill. It will add some color and give the impression of alien foliage. I got the idea from Shenanigan's Hobby shop in Taylor. They've got a whole set of terrain that uses plastic flowers from a dollar store to create an alien forest landscape similar to Felucia in Revenge of the Sith. Again I intend to give these guys the standard aspect warrior color scheme. As a bonus this pic includes a shot of my 360 and part of my cat's fort. (Refer to first pic for a full view of the cat fort.)

This brings us to center stage. A staple of my army lists for some time now is the jetbike unit. This one sports a warlock and Farseer, and I just brought it up to 9 models strong. Also featured is my webway gate. They used to have templates and instructions on how to make them on the GW website, but I don't believe it's up there anymore. At any rate. Not hard to make. All the models need some finishing touches and I've recently warmed to the idea of flocking my flying bases. Something I used to be opposed with simply because I liked the idea of seeing whatever terrain was underneath. Now however, I see it as an opportunity to add more detail to the model. Also, it covers up smudging and what have you on the base itself.
On the upper right of the table I've got a few thing going on. There is another swooping hawks unit as well as my, hopefully starting to be infamous, War Walkers. This time though they are armed with scatter lasers (I had the points!) and you get to see my Autarch commander directing traffic. It's less apparent in this picture, but when you get the wide shot it looks like the war walkers are cruising through a valley which is kind of an awesome visual. As I said before the hawks will have the standard light blue color scheme of their aspect. I'm still hashing out the colors scheme on the war walkers. My standard vehicle scheme being enchanted blue with dry brushed ice blue over it, but since they are walkers I might go a different route. Currently thinking to try doing the under chassis and legs in bleached bone and give the rest of the model, specifically the armored areas, the light blue on dark blue camo pattern. Guns will likely be grey or black. As for the Autarch, I sort of want to paint him up like the Autarch/Swooping Hawk on the 2nd edition codex. Go with the bleach bone armor, and ice blue helmet, but use an almost rainbow like pattern on the wing tips. Time will tell how that works out.

The last picture is of another Ranger squad and a full unit of Harlequin. That Deathjester there is my only completely painted model, yet even now I need to touch him up as he's taken battle damage. With the rest of the Harlequin I'm going to explore painting them in as many crazy ways as I can imagine. Yes, I'm painting my Troupe Master to resemble the Joker. One of them has a half-assed attempt at a diamond pattern on his jacket, but that needs some serious refinement. The Rangers will be painted similarly to the other group and I intend to finish the trees at some point. As a whole I see the army as a recon element (though at 1850pts it's likely to be recon in-force) and my intention is to portray them just entering a planet via that webway gate. Now that I've updated you on the goings on, it's time to bust out the paint and get to working on this project.