40K 9th. Edition – Finished! Indomitus Starter Box – Primaris Mentors Chapter

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Here they are! All finished and together! Coolest scheme I never knew about… Thanks to Azazel, I discovered this gem of the forgotten 40K lore. Some debate on what the appropriate name should be… Mentors Chapter, Mentor Chapter… or Mentor Legion as they were originally named.

They come from an unknown primarch seed, their Chapter-House resides on an unknown planet… They have close ties to the Adeptus Mechanicus and are often the first ones to test their “new” toys. They love information… and to go against the general flow of the forty-first millennium, they, as the name suggests, like to teach other loyalists what they know. And more stuff… but not much. Pity that.

I loved how steady this came out… Learned a lot, and had fun! Although I think as I moved forward, cutting corners, I also forgot to paint or detail a little something on each mini…?

One big breakthrough (And something you should be at least trying, if you are not running electrical wires through your minis) is to magnetize every arm and head. The amount of fun I had reposing and mixing every part was out of this world! Being able to convert without having to really compromise… and supposing you actually play the game, changing your gear accordingly! As a side bonus, magnetized subassemblies are easier to paint (and store, after) than pinning them, since you can put them on, or remove depending on which stage you are painting, making the result totally cohesive (for the original intended body, at least)

Using the extra options provided, and some bits I had from the old Dark Vengeance 8th. edition starter box, I came out with an alternative (display configuration)

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Oh, and beards… Cotton beards, to be precise… stylized using Modge Podge, applied on the contact area of the face and in between the tuffs (just a bit) they are actually rock-solid, but bendy enough to accomodate the different bodies you might use them on (not like half of those halos, which I had to pin) They are very easy to make… Just “shingle” flat tuffs starting from below… All of them came out on the first try.

What else to add? Their basing… All different… I tried every combination under the sun of superglue, white glue, kitty litter, sand, bicarbonate as it occurred in the moment, all tied up using AK Interactive’s Kursk Earth and AK’s colored-dust pigments.

And for future reference, and in case anyone would like to try this color scheme out, I’ll detail the paints used:

V’s: Vallejo, GW: Citadel (Games Workshop), AK: AK Interactive, Mnt: Montana, T’s: Titan

Priming: GW Chaos Black. (as it ran out, moved to V’s Black primer)

Then a directional zenithal highlight using Mnt White Air.

Greens: Base of V’s Flat Green, highlights with 50% Flat Green and V’s Ice Yellow, with some shadows pushed using V’s Military Green. (for the special guys)

White parts: Just glazed V’s Offwhite. (Final upper dot with cold white for the special dudes)

Metal: V’s Natural Steel. (some highlights using GW Mithril Silver)

Silver: (just the wings of the aquila) GW Mithril Silver.

Golden: GW Retributor Armour with some highlights of V’s Old Gold (some GW Mithril silver as extreme dot highlight for the special dudes)

Parchment: V’s Ice Yellow.

Wax Seals: GW Khorne Red (extreme highlight of V’s Magenta for the special dudes)

Cloth: Thre was some variation there… But mainly wet-blending of GW Steel Legion Drab to V’s Ice Yellow, with V’s Offwhite extreme highlights.

Leather: GW Rhinox Hide, higlight of GW XV-88. (some midtones of GW Mournfang Brown for the special dudes)

Skin: GW Contrast Guilliman Flesh, higlighted with 50% V’s Beige Red and V’s Cold White. (better not wash this parts)

Lenses: GW Khorne Red, after the wash, smaller portion of GW Khorne red, highlight area of 50% Khorne Red and V’s Orange Fluo, with a dot of V’s Cold White.

Text on parchment: Sometimes GW Contrast Black Templar, sometimes a black Staedtler pen, sometimes I forgot…

Black: GW Contrast Black Templar.

Lime: (Those chainswords) GW Contrast Plaguebearer Flesh.

Energy Swords: V’s Transparent Blue highlighted with V’s Cold White.

Blue-ish OSL: GW Nihilack Oxide and V’s Blue Green.

Oil-Paint wash: Mostly after the base single color (after first highlights for the special dudes) 3 parts T’s Black, 1 part T’s Blue, 1 Part T’s Red 1 part T’s Brown and enough turpentine for it to be a wash…

Clean the excess with pure turpentine, apply highlights. I tried some AK’s Streaking Grime after that wash, but I abandoned that step… It does enrich the shadows but but the undesired green tint on the highlights made me skip it as I moved forward.

To fix the pigments and protect the paintjob a bit, I finished them with Mnt Matt Varnish.

And I think that’s it! Thanks for following along!