thanks guys. Yes celestine was fun. I wanted to create my own order, so the Order is the Order of the Sacred Cross. I wanted to avoid the red at all costs, but still keep some aspects of the official color scheme, so I went for the turquoise as it stands out nicely against the yellow. The army badge I gave her on the back of her robe is basically a grey cross, like the order of the martyred lady, but instead of a skull, I incorporated a turquoise rose. As for the bases, i wanted to finally use the fall leaves I had, and decided to sculpt the bases as a ruined cathedral, with the sporadic leaves about. Because of the fragile nature of the purity seals that normally would support celestine and her geminae, I opted to instead pin them at their feet into a more stable base. So I got some wooden dowel rods, and glued a paperclip to the side of it, and used that bent at an angle to pin the girls in their feet. I then used the purity seals as a way to drape from the model onto the base. After the dowel rod, I sculpted them to look like damaged columns. I really like the end result, I just wish they would go ahead and release more plastic sisters so I could build up the rest of the army. Back in 97, my first army was sisters of battle, so I want a new plastic army. But I will probably be in a retirement home by the time that happens.
As for the fists, i am the same way. I love the dark angels, and blood angels, and have always liked the fluff for the fists. So I finally decided to do an official color scheme with the primaris, I narrowed it down to imperial fists or crimson fists, or to go with white scars or Destroyers, basically an official legion or a successor. I had done crimson fists before so I knew they would be easy, and the destroyers were black with yellow accents like the sisters. I sort of wanted to avoid the yellow, but white scars would really be pushing it to paint an entire army. After seeing GW had a yellow primer, I figured I would go that route to paint them. I found a fairly easy way to paint the yellow, but I still grow tired of painting marines, even the cooler looking ones. As for the black helm, I couldn't find any good looking translations to mark the lieutenants helmet so I used the horus heresy fluff and borrowed the old fist iconography. I decided red helms for sergeants, red with white for vet sergeants, white helms for veterans, and white with red stripes for sergeants of veteran squads. For the Lt. i went with a black helm with white stripe, and for the captain I was going to go with a solid black helmet. It fits the scheme nicely and makes him stand out. I also gave the Lt. his own variation of the companies heraldy on his shoulder pad. I decided to spread the check pattern around from the intercessors, to the banner, and then to the heraldy, so I gave him a red stripe at an angle, with the top half being checks, the bottom half being yellow, and then gave him a black templars cross as a sign of honors since he has a sword and pistol. overall it worked nicely and I may come back and revisit them, I need to finish painting up the starter set and non gravis captain, I sold off the rest of the army for now. Figured if they every release a Rogal Dorn model or some other variances of primaris marines, I would pick the army back up.
I went with eldar because I wanted an army with some flexability, and something that wasn't marines. Now I am going to work on them, but I am thinking of building a small Guard army using the new escher models, and have it inspired by Tank girl. I will start collecting some stuff for it now, but I am trying to stay focused on finishing the eldar. Been having good luck with them in the couple of games I have played, and I got a scheme I like finally. Now it is just a matter of finding time.