Friday, June 15, 2012

Louis' 1st Legion: Dark Angels (3rd Company)

Hi everyone, I've decided to pop my "SNS cherry" by starting my first project log showcasing a DA Tactical Squad I salvaged from an unfortunate encounter with a can of GW Purity Seal on a humid day back in September 2011. I had finished my first squad, applied the water transfers properly and wanted to seal them and make sure the decals will sit tight.  What ended up happening was that all my marines ended up all fogged up as the Purity Seal overly matted them all.


I had given up on them (and decided to field them as spare troops until I get around painting a new squad) until recently FA started to sell the little bottles of Mr.HOBBY - Mr.MARK SOFTER.  For those who are not familiar with this bottled solution, what it does is it softens a water transfer so it will contort and hug around any contorted shape (such as a Space Marine's shoulder pad).  The beauty of this solution is that it has next to zero reaction to paint so you don't have to worry that it'll f*ck up your paint job.  You simply apply a layer of Mr.MARK SOFTER to the surface you wish to adhere the transfer to, soak transfer in water for 15-20 seconds, using tweezers and a brush gently apply transfer to the surface (shoulder pad in this instance), let it sit for 5-10 secs, and brush another layer of Mr.MARK SOFTER.  Just let the solution take effect and within a minute or so you should be able to see that the decal has softened and you can use a Q-Tip to flatten out the small little folds and creases from the decal.

So what I ended up doing was I sanded all the previously applied decals (all foggy looking like dust have covered them all for eternity), washed the marine entirely w/ a slightly diluted Badab Black (which took away some of the fogginess) and re-painted their armor with Caliban Green (a much darker green than Dark Angels Green, which is great as I always preferred DA to be of a darker green tone - this stage brought the miniatures back to their original state prior to the Purity Seal) and washed again w/ a more diluted Badab Black.

To conceal any slight imperfection of the new transfers I applied (following steps above), I decided to weather my marines heavily with chipped marks and battle damage (especially around shoulder pads) and I think the overall effect turned out alright.

Let me know what you think and I'll be sure to post any progress/updates on my DA army!!

Cheers!!












11 comments:

  1. Awesome mate they look really cool. Great advice on how to recover previously thought ruined models too.

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  2. Hi Louis - great to have you on the blog. Re: misty purity seal - i had this problem once too. I went to the forums to bitch, and a simple trick is to spray gloss varnish over it. It 'fills in' all the misty ness. Then throw away your GW varnish and buy mr hobby (or testor's if you can find it in HK) ;-)

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  3. Thanks! Any idea how I can place this post to the Armies of SNS section? Just easier for me to track, that's all.

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  4. If you make a thread called Louis' Dark Angels then I can sticky that in the armies section and you can add pictures as and when you want.

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  5. Thanks Alex, I just have one more question: how do I create a 'thread'? I'm new to using blogspot....

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  6. Just how you created this post. I meant post not thread sorry.

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  7. Do one for your BA and any other armies you own. Plus if you do battle reports or tacticas I'll sticky those too.

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  8. Louis, good having you on board... now we got 2 unforgivens... I'm bored at work but I was thinking... DA have a secret agenda. DA hates everyone, Everyone basically hates DA, DA are the main suspects amongst themselves and pretty much the entire universe... calling ourselves the unforgiven... doesn't that sound kinda shady? I mean, is it possible to not think badly of them? just a thought...

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  9. Good point dude, but I'm not 100% sure if Unforgiven is a term only DA use among themselves or is it universally known. I'm prone to think that the battle-brothers only know that they have a secret which no one outside the chapter can know... so the Inner Circle tells them, "We're all unforgiven... but if you want to know our secret, train and fight hard and maybe one day you'll get to be a part of the inner circle and we'll tell you more. Or die in the process!!" Good way to motivate people right?

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  10. Basically the higher up the ranks of the DA you go the more you find out. Simple battle-brothers no nothing of the heresy and the fallen...

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