To quote myself
I always wanted to play Imperial Guard. Endless columns of tanks rumbled along my inner eye whenever I finished another Dan Abnett or Graham McNeill novel.
So building this army won't have any tournament list in mind, it will be more of the administration and organisation behind the guard. Having driven tanks in army myself (long ago) I was fascinated by the amount of organisation and effort a single tank needs to function properly (or not function at all as I remember). Tanks should therefore have numbers and markings on them (there are thousands of them) and I will hopefully be able to build some support vehicles not mentioned in E:A (recovery tanks, cargo trucks, drop ships, etc.). But first of all I will have to build and paint the core of my IG, learning from painting myself and from some advise.
So, starting in january I've put together several blocks to be finished until X.

Phase (1)
Infantry companies with upgrades
(January/February 2012)
900pts
55% finished

Since I am currently writing my thesis I'm using mind maps all day long and have organized my epic plans in a mind map too (see attachment). Welcome to the nation of procrasti ...!
In the next days I will post some pics of the (green highlighted) ready painted infantry stands. I just need some daylight and a steady hand ...

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Tale of Epic Gamers - Beginnings of my Guard Army

Very excited for this sounds like a very interesting project!

So much for good daylight, it's snowing outside ... meh ... plus I only have a phone to take photos ... plus I still have no clue how to use it properly ... barely managed to increase brightness.
So much for the excuses:

Still have to do the faces on the command units without commissars.
Colours are somewhat washed over due to the 2.0 brightness level on my phone. Hopefully I'm able to get some help with a real cam next week.
Except for the faces I declare the two companies finished. I'm pleased with the result but aren't very eager to repeat the process on two more companies. I have been painfully slow.

PS: Does anyone know how to arrange the attachments in one line rather stacked on top of each other?

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Tale of Epic Gamers - Beginnings of my Guard Army

Very nice clean painting!
Keeping the overexposed look in mind, the colours look great!

If you're having trouble with your phone, maybe take it on neutral settings and then brighten it in some software like Photoshop etc.
That will give you more control about contrast and colour

Gruss ins verschneite Hamburg!

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Inf look very neat, have you considered using a wash on the capes?

Cmap army list?

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

@MrGonzo
Thanks. I will keep the software solution in mind, but will first ask a friend to help me with her cam (an some lessons on light and zoom etc.) before I'm struggling with Gimp.
Neutral settings on my phone this morning gave me really dark pics. Couldn't even recognise the miniatures myself.

Since I wanted to improve in every aspect of gaming through this thread thats fine for me. So pictures will hopefully get better over the year ...

@Apo
Nope, I never used washes. Last time I painted something was 8 years ago. And I wasn't good back then ... but those wash thingies somehow escaped me. I considered dipping with Army Painter then, but I think this wouldn't work on an epic scale. The infantry stands were just painted to cover the areas with three colours ... no techniques. Except for drybushing the bases with two colours.

Do you have any tutorial on how and what colours?

I used Vallejo:
coats: Desert Yellow (977)
equipment: English Uniform (921)

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Tale of Epic Gamers - Beginnings of my Guard Army

I would say that although it may seem counter intuitive, washing is almost essential for epic infantry to add a sense of depth, a wash of devlan mud (if you can get some) or try army painter strong tone (generally better to brush it on than dip, plus a dropper bottle costs WAY less than a dipping tin)

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Glorious News:
I just found a bottle Devlan Mud and a bottle Gryphonne Sepia in the depths of my desk. So I will get me a decent tutorial and try this on two more stands of infantry (in order to paint those pesky infantry stands not as a company in one go, but two stands at a time. This should avoid having 30 stands sitting on the desk tormenting you )
Thanks for the advice so far!

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Tale of Epic Gamers - Beginnings of my Guard Army

Apart from becoming a better painter, these are the next units to finish:

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Tale of Epic Gamers - Beginnings of my Guard Army

those heavy weapon dudes are looking fantastic, love the little details on the bases!

getting the hang of washes is quite simple, they stay wet for quite a while so you can rinse and dry the brush, then use it to remove excess wash if required (or like me, simply blow the excess off!) they'll really make your clean colour schemes pop

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Thanks. I also tried to build some light mortar teams, but neither the griffon weapon nor the squat mole mortar are small enough. They just don't look as if you can carry/draw them along. I might try to mount the squat mortar on the GW orc gun trailer (and rip the orc gun team apart). Or buy some of those lovely Forgeworld orc flak trailers (and wait till spring for them to arrive).
First of all I will just build the second bunch of heavy weapon teams out of the bolter guys from the normal sprue, two on a base with some cover and comrades to assist.

Hopefully I will get to paint something on the weekend (and try washes) but most depressing of all I've got matchday (the decisive one) on both days and the same time there will be the Hamburger Tactica (big Wargaming Convention in Germany ... 10min journey for me) with both Perrys attending. Argh.

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Tale of Epic Gamers - Beginnings of my Guard Army

For the support vehicles Ground Zero Games do some nice ones might not be grim-dork enough for 40k mind.

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Rightyus Indergestyun I
Stabb-Blasta II

Verum Irae II

What about these?
http://www.exoduswars.com/6mm-Khazari-M ... rchSize=12

Thanks for the pointers to GZG and ExodusWars.
To distract me from painting I have fiddled around with the existing GW and FW alternatives. (FW arrived today, yeah! ... )
The FW flak trailers are really charming but quite large (see picture), the GW ork flak trailers could be Imperial Design (captured) and are not that big.
(notice the flak gunner, the model is awesome, reminds me of Waterworld or MadMax)

Still not sure what to do, a heavy weapon team should be able to carry their weapon. Mechanized Infantry spoke of "base plate rallye" when mentioning the mortar team, cause the plate weighs a lot.

I might have a go on GZG and ExodusWars.
Sun is shining, so I will paint on ...

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Tale of Epic Gamers - Beginnings of my Guard Army