One of my difficulties is getting stuck into my models and getting them done. I think I've painted 3 marines so far. Sure, I've only been playing for a while. Sure, real life sometimes gets in the way of your planned 40k hobby time. Sometimes though, it's the sheer size of my 'to do' box pile that I find daunting. I decided I needed a plan. So a plan is what I made.
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| Original Images by Games Workshop |
I play Dark Angels which normally have three distinct colour schemes. Deathwing are bone-white, Ravenwing are black and the more conventional troops and vehicles are green. More individual schemes than most armies but I don't plan to stop there. Some of the unforgiven successor chapters have gained my interest and I plan to paint up some models for them too. The end result should be a force representative of the Dark Angels with some Angels of Redemption tagging along. I'm not a fan of the Deathwing colour scheme (heresy I know) so I'll probably paint them up as either pre-heresy legion colours or make up my own successor chapter to explain my paint job. Either way the force should look fairly dark and brooding.
However, the idea of having so many different coloured models presented an obstacle. I only have so many marines and only so many special weapons to give those marines. If I was painting a single chapter it wouldn't be a problem but as I don't want to have a jumble of different coloured marines in a squad, what do I do with the special weapon guys? The Dark Angel veterans would fit in with either Dark Angels or Angels of Redemption colour wise but using a veteran model for every special weapon marine wasn't really feasible.
I want each member in a squad to be from the same chapter for aesthetics and I want to maintain flexibility so that list building doesn't become an onerous chore. I eventually worked out something suitable but with so many variables it was almost impossible to keep track of just inside my head so I put it on paper in the form of a list. Yet, the task was still daunting and we're just talking about my standard troops. The rest of the army is still to come. How did I address it? With pictures. Most people are visual. Pictures help us make sense of complex things and allow us to more easily compartmentalize problems. So I combined pictures of what I wanted to create with a checklist of completion status boxes that I could cross out once they were finished. This was the result.
This is just one page of many. There's no point in posting more than one picture that is essentially the same thing but you get the idea. The solid green marines are Dark Angels while the half-half marines are Angels of Redemption. The images of the marines were done with The Bolter and Chainsword Space Marine Painter so kudos to them for making something that's relatively easy to use.
Hopefully this will help me make a dent in the colossal task that is building my army. Having said that, I'm not tunnel visioned on the end result. I definitely plan to enjoy the journey as well.
Comments are welcome!
- Dugatron