Session three...almost there!

Last night was a great session.  The weapons and trench gear were completed, along with highlights to the armor and some base work.  The wash needed to dry, and it was getting late, so the rest of the base work will come in the 4th session.  With the bases underway, I'm much less concerned about the great coats now.

On advice from council, I decided to change the sergeant stripe from white to red.  This will line up better with the red I'm planning for the collars, veterans, and command staff and will draw the units together.

It took some thinking to decide on the weapons. In general, I'm using the green for most metal (armor, heavy weapon casing, ammo boxes, grenades, etc.).  However for the hand weapons, I felt the green would be to much.  I don't want the whole model looking green.  After reviewing the Siege of Vraks books and comparing with some nice results found online for other folks, I decided to go with a black-gray and gunmetal with a black wash for the weapons.  This scheme looks authentic but prevents the hand weapons from standing out and drawing the eye.  The focus should be on the trooper's head/face, not his kit.

If all goes well, the next post will be of the completed unit.  From there, I'll probably not post in such detail for every unit since it will be come repetitive with all the squads needing painting.  I'm very psyched with the results I have achieved across ten models in only three sessions.  That's about 9 hours of work and I already have a table ready unit.  The bases will get finished in the next session, followed by some general clean up of the models (additional shading/highlighting/fixing where necessary) and final details like the campaign marks on the collar. Last, I will add any transfers. I'm planning on shoulder pad decals for the regiment.

I hope you will agree this has been a successful test pass for painting a general unit.  If I can cut the work down to three sessions for a ten man squad from four, that would be ideal.  That's pretty fast for my painting, but I think I will pick up pace as I get more experience with the color scheme.  I look forward to painting veterans, command squads, and heavy weapon bases for variety.  And let's not forget TANKS. :)  That's the whole reason I got into Imperial Guard in the first place.

This whole DKoK obsession started when a friend gave me a GW plastic Baneblade kit in trade for my old edition Orks 2 years ago...

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming!