Look out , Look out, there’s a Spartan About!, Bob’s Halo Project.

Not the last thing done  they were actually finished last week.

As a test I decided to do the smaller peices using my new set of Speedpaint.Pens. I figured if it went wro g these would be easiest to fix. It wasza bit of small learning curve o  use, and some bits needed multiple coats but on whole went well, the larger bits were done using more traditional.paints.

And until the end of the month when the ODST expansion is sent to me I’m done.

I was half expecting to get the shipping mail as I finished Atriox’s !

Then for the final figure of the box… and because I can be anal, the separate to Retail pose Atriox.

Now I did initially thought, this is going g to be a pain to paint till.I realised looking at the Game his Armour was pretty mush shiny steel !

So again zi went for a different shade fir the under suit, this tome using the now tried and trusted Speedpaont Gunner Cloak. To be honest there isn’t a lot of it on both figures that’s not covered in armour and belts. Bandages and belts were done as before  and the armour was then done in Speedpaints metallic Poloshed Silver. As I lirally emptied the bottle as gong figures ( it’s been used a lot) I actually got to use one my Speedpaint pens to finish off  again Polished Silver.

This then got coated in Nuln Oil and left to dry for couple of hours.

One dry I carefully gave the armour a light drybrush of arms painters Shining Silver.

The base was just given a coat of GW Gryph Charger Grey ,

The pipes were darkened with Basilicum Grey, then I used the Polished Silver to highlight the Detrituus.

Finally I got to the Banished, or Big Space Apes as Gerry and Shay call them.

Now these were done predominantly with Speedpaints , the only GW contrast being team Blues   Akhelian Green for their Armour panels, mainly as I liked the shade when I did my Winter Falscrimjager, Sleton Horde for the base colour of the Banisheds skin/fur and Gryph Charger Grey as a stain on the bases

Other than that it was Speedpaints,  I had tried A dark Green on the Elites for the back armoured suits, but hadn’t like it and stuck to Basilicum Grey  but this time I had found Speedpaints Absolution Green  which gave nice shading and used that instead.  For the Bandaging on legs and arms I used Pallid Bone, and most of leather straps plus heavier fur was the excellent Hardened Leather.

Red Team replaced the Contrast paint with Speedpaints Bright Red, which did an excellent job for this team.

The fact their are two teams , was a slight cock up on my part. I had brought one at Salute, and forgot what extra teams I had so brought another at Games Expo.

Not a big problem as these are the very nice resin alt poses of the original team from the starte boxes,  so although Black and Field Grey became alt Red and  Blue Team respectively.

For these teams I had decided on different secondary colours particularly helmets. White, Yellow, Red and Purple, although I changed which figure had what on 2nd team.

When I came to do these I found that the Figure with the Gravity Hammer  hadn’t got a hammer, it being missing and effectivily had a quarter staff. I could I suppose have contacted Mantic, but decided to manage with bits so I used a spare funnel from A Dystopian Wars Crown Warship and a bit of unused M113 engine (see Dark Suns Project) and did what I thought luck like a good ‘ammer’

It wasn’t the original intentio  but the next two pairs Ted Spartons have been named after Kevin’s 2 neices the Infamous Alice in Speed Paints Purple Swarm and Susan in Zealot Yellow, as these are their favourite colours.

The next two figures choice of colour became the primary colours for my two final teams of Spartans.

That being Gunner Cloak , which had been purchased on Gerrys recommendation as a good German Field Grey, and Grim Black. Here it is used undiluted, and although it did give a good shading effect, I did slightly dilute it fir later figures as I felt I needed a Light White drybtush this time.

Despite having started the Rise of the Banished, with the 2nd Batch of Elite. I left the Brutes for a while and started on the various expansion  Boxe’s starting with the Wargames , and Cerebus Fire Team Expansions. I had pretty much used up colours I had various shades of Contrast and Speedpaints, so these became more varied in colour, pretty much going through what I had left in both ranges. This has come as a bit of a bonus in that I now have a visual sample of my current collection of those ranges as they appear on a white base.

Anyway I started with the Wargame Expansion Spartans, being able to pick a predominantly brown as the colour with what I had available.

One figure though was done in.light grey, as I had liked how that had turned out when doing the Grey team previously. In addition figures were done in Speed Paints, Pallid Bone and Hardened Leather, with the final one done in GW contrasts Skeleton Bone.

I also decided this team would have a Secondary colour and went for Speed Paints Zealot Yellow as I have found that a  particularly nice paint in past.

Although the above 2 figures came out OK with the Contrast Paints , I found with the 2nd 2 done with Speedpaints Pallid Bone and Hardened Leather a better painting experience, on both the paint was easier to use and they gave good shading  particularly the Hardened Leather.

As I continued painting the rest of my collection Speedpaints became more and more dominant in my choices on shades to use.

So all but the little bits of terrain ( which have been done but will appear in later terrain section when all is completed) all I had to do was the 4 Elites from Base Box.

As I had already got Rise of the Banished I could colour theme as I had with the original Spartan’s .

Red and Blue, this time I thought rather than White for base I would use Army Painter plate metal to get a metallic effect on their Armour.

Looking at my Collection of 8″ figures, it looked like the back suit was either very dark green or Black so decided to stick with Basilicum Grey, other than hand and face, which having 1st whitened with Army Painters UNSC white , was coloured with SpeedPaints Forest Sprite.

The metallic effect I wanted again was efected by the base contrast and Speed Paints used  again getting better results with Red than Blue. Once it had dried I did a dry Brush with SpeedPaints Polished Steel to re metallic them were it hadn’t quite worked.

Wpn we’re appropriately coloured using image either on line or from the unit cards in Box ( as had been done with some of earlier Spartons.

I originally Varnished them using an ordinary Matt Vanish, but didn’t like the effect on the under suit, so Ulttr Matt Varished them, but then Gave them Dry Brush of Gloss Varnish to pot a shine on the highlights.

As I was ding Green team, It made sense that I Also did my Master Cheif Figure. The various Greens gave me the idea for the Base Shade I wanted, which was Speed Paints Forest Sprite.

I painted the armour decoration as of his 1st Apearance in the original HALO,  I had found some suitably sized number decals for his chest plate, then realised they were impost on the Figure So carefully picked them out.

The sword was the base white with a GW Contrast Tallasar Blue splodges on it.

Base was simply done with GW Gryph Charger Gey for Cobbled Effecy and Skeleton bone for Rubble.

A figure I have wanted since Halo the original came out, and now hopefully I have done him Justice.