Iron Snakes

This picture practically forced me to buy the book, the book forced me to make the army.

So one of the best ways to get to know a hobbyist is to look at his favorite army. I'll always be a Guardsman at heart but I never had more fun than when I was using my Iron Snakes and they really do look sharp on the table top, where my Imperial Guard is just now catching up.

These first pictures are from a painting contest that was held at my local GW store and the pictures were judged remotely by Tim Lison. I didn't win the contest but well I was working on commissions and the guy who won put a lot of effort into his entry. Still happy that I walked out of it with a solid 1k force painted that set me up for easy plugs to hit the higher point values.





These next pictures were close ups to show how the harpoons looked and to give close ups on the test models shoulder bands. I tried to follow as closely to the cover of Brothers of the Snake as I could including the white lattice pattern.

The paint job is easy:
1. Tin Bitz the whole model.
2. Drybrush with Boltgun Metal and Tin Bitz 3:1.
3. Highlight with a light drybrush of Chainmail.
4. Paint the golden areas with Shining Gold and wash with Chestnut Ink.
5. Paint Chaos Black on all of the details and proceed to paint the details.

The harpoons are a bit harder though and getting the bits may not be as easy as it was for me who just happened to have a lot of Skaven spears lying around.
1. There is a Skaven spear in the old clan rat regiment box that is both molded in a Clan Rat's hand and modeled loosely. This was idea as I get two or three sets per box.
2. Cut the head off of the spear.
3. Use the largest bit to drill the large hole at the fattest part of the blade, then the medium hole and finally the smallest hole with the smallest bit. At least the smallest bit in the GW range of bits.
4. Remove the chainsword from a Space Marine hand and drill a hole using a medium bit through the hand.
5. Take a large paperclip with medium thickness and carefully bend it into as straight a shape as possible and put the spear head on top.
6. Cut the clip to appropriate length and slide the bottom through the Marine's hand.

Making the paperclip straight enough to be a spear haft and making sure that the holes in the spear head were uniform were both hard at times.