Imperial Fists - Heresy Era.........Jumping in at the deep end!

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with a post about my new project; Heresy Era Imperial Fists.
I've always fancied an Imperial Fists army, I'm a devout loyalist but never wanted a smurf army and even though I love Iron Hands I don't much like painting black.
However like a lot of people out there my experiments with yellow over the decades have proved less than successful so an entirely yellow army has always been quite daunting!

But then.......! A couple of months ago I saw a really nice post or two on FB by a dude (whose name I can't remember) with a fantastically simple but effective recipe for a weathered yellow. His IF look really nice and the recipe works on all scales of models. If you're the dude and you're reading this then a big shout out to you! Thanks for the advice.

So the recipe as I've used it is:

Spray base of Zandri Dust,
wash in recesses and around rivets etc with seraphim sepia,
wash entire surface/model in casandora yellow,
wash entire surface/model in lamentors yellow.
leave each coat to dry thoroughly of course....

..and that's it basically for all the yellow bits.

what you get is a kinda dirty mustard yellow which already looks nicely weathered and with all the lovely detail picked out and shading/highlights done.

I spent longer waiting for drying paint than I did painting. Easy!!

Then it's just a matter of picking out all the other bits that aren't yellow, bolters and vents and eyes etc. In all honesty that took longer on the models I've done so far than the yellow did.
And finally I want a real dirty and war torn look so I'll be going big on the weathering!

So I started the army with a Typhon, that's right I jumped straight in with a massive tank because I hadn't at that point got any 30k marines yet, apart from 2 missile dudes gifted by Doc. I do now and am working on those, but more on that later.

This was a pretty risky move for me, my first experiment with the scheme and some new techniques too and on a fairly irreplaceable model but hey ho I thought!

Here's the finished model...

..and the first two marines I've completed which were kindly donated by Doc.

These were my test pieces and will eventually be joined by another 8.
I decided to deviate from the official scheme cos I like to have a nice bright spot colour on all my stuff, you generally look at models from several feet away when they're in play so in my mind they need to jump out a bit. Si I scrapped the black detailing from the books and I've gone with a nice bright red on weapon casings and markings etc. I also had my first go with decal fix too, with mixed results, I'll keep experimenting. I used Humbrol's version here.

All in all I'm well pleased with the results. As you can no doubt see I've added to the basic weathering result of the yellow recipe by using sponge weathering to create chipping and then a liberal application of weathering powders to create dirt and soot streaking. The metal was weathered by washing with various browns and orange and dry brushing the edges with silver and then weathering powders to dull it back. The transfers are from the FW sheet and are really nice, you get loads too, a good purchase in my book.

This was also my first attempt at using weathering powders and I've got to say that it only took a little while to get the hang of dry application. I'd recommend the FW masterclass books; they too are a really worthwhile investment and I've used a few of the techniques shown in them.

I hope you like how this has started, I know I do, and as always C & C welcome.
Next up is a 10 man breacher squad, then hopefully a 20 man tactical squad.

Bluddtoof