Death Company Furioso

This guy was supposed to be a flesh tearer, and be part of my Armies on Parade display. However the washes did not dry in time, and there was no way I was going to get the transfers done the morning before the competition. It might be a good thing, since I am not sure I like how he turned out. I really like elements, but over all the last wash went on so think it obscured my shading. I enjoyed adding battle damage to him, which I did with zeal. His base is temporary, and I still need to shade the gold and touch up the blood drops.

I may add him to the display as part of the Chicago competition, unless I am not allowed to change the force up.

Armies on Parade Win!

I won the Armies on Parade competition for the Springfield GW store! For quite a while I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to work the contest in between all of my business travel. Now I get to represent the Springfield store in Chicago. I have no illusions of grandeur for the overall Games Day competition, but it will be fun having my work on display.

There were six AoP contestants at the GW store. There was a nicely painted Ork Army with a great battle wagon, A vibrantly painted Empire army with a chalice wielding Lady riding side saddle, an Imperial Guard Army, a very small but well painted Ogre pirate army, and a space wolf army sporting the best freehand I have seen in a long time. The space wolf army had intricate freehand on every surface. He is one painter to watch. For a first army it was outstanding. It was really just a matter of not knowing all of the techniques.

In terms of preparation for Chicago GD, I have a bevy of good critiques to address. I am going to finish putting on transfers on the troops, as well as spray dull coat on all of the existing ones.

I may dremel out the blood chalice on Corbulo, but lacking dremel skills, I am a little wary of that idea. It would look look much nicer as an actual chalice rather than a weird solid mace like thing. As expected I have a lot of wear and tear to deal with. I've got a lot of little paint chips to deal with from transport. Unexpectedly, one finecast miniature's power sword deformed deformed in the heat while I was getting dinner.

Overall my wife and I are really looking forward to going to Chicago. We were married in Oak Park, which is right outside Chicago, and are really looking forward to going back.

Flesh Tearers and Devil Dogs

My original plan was to have my BA escorting the Devil Dogs for Armies on Parade. However I just don't have enough space on my board to make it happen for the competition. With the little space I had left over I decided to revamp an old partially completed squad of flesh tearers. I had to re-wash, highlight, and damage these guys, as well as rework the power weapon so it would fit into my new blue PW scheme. Overall I am really happy with them. I am a little surprised that some touched up older miniatures are in some ways more interesting than my new ones. If only I had time to finish chapter master Seth....

Warhammer 40k Cosplay

Maybe everyone has already seen this, but while taking a break from painting for Armies on Parade, I found this video online. If only Games Day were something like this!

Heroes of Armageddon Devil Dogs Pt3

I added washes, and used a trusty old number 2 pencil to add graphite marks to the tracks. The photos are a little dark, but such is life with photography at night. The weird thing is how my devlin mud wash made whitish pools around each surface. It is kind of cool as I think it fits in with the other HoA tanks, but I did not plan this. There may have been a little acrylic thinner in my water cup, so perhaps that caused the odd paint behavior. Any ideas?

Got to go pack so I can fly out across the entire country for a 3 hour meeting.

See you all at the GW Springfield store this Saturday for the AoP competition. If you can think up a list for my weird assortment of BA, I'll even try to get a game in.

Heroes of Armageddon Devil Dogs Pt2

The Devil Dogs now have rusty tracks and pressure transfers. I tried to make the red stripe with the white lettering look like something that would be put on in the field to mark the tanks out. I am thinking about not gluing the back portions on since the chemical tanks look so cool, and can be pulled out after a vehicle destroyed hit in order to make terrain. I plan to print out some transfers for each dog, customizing it like old WWII bombers. The tacky peeing calvin and hobbs image that used to be seen on a lot of cars is actually appropriate here! I don't plan on using that one, but it was a blast from the past when google image came up with it.

So, do I add washes to the tanks, or just let them be. I kind of like the way they look right now.

Remember, you could win these tanks, along with a whole sweet Dave Taylor inspired Steel Legion army, so your opinion matters!

Heroes of Armageddon Devil Dogs

At long last, the two Devil Dogs part of the Steel Legion army being constructed under Dave Taylor's leadership are under way. My plan is to bring these to the Armies on Parade contest this Saturday at the Springfield VA GW store. I think they will look right at home nestled in between my AoP Blood Angels armor.

I am not sure about the tracks though. I used water to try and dilute the weathering powders and I ended up with a glue like substance. The good thing is that it should wipe off fairly easily if it looks too bad when dry. My plan is to wipe these down, and then use a graphite pencil over all of the edges once they are on the tank.

Armies on Parade Tank Progress

All of the BA tanks are now weathered. There are still loads of lenses/head lights to paint, but I think they are coming along well. I was tempted not to weather the tanks at all.

The vindi finally got its siege shield, which it was really missing. Somehow they just don't look right without that massive dozer blade in front.

One the final details are painted, I will hit these tanks with weathering powders. It was hard not to jump in and hit the tracks with them now, but weathering powders are messy and really need to be the last step.

Armies On Parade!

After struggling with my display board all day, I am now on the home stretch! I still have to finish painting eyes, gems, weather the tanks. By tomorrow evening, just in time for Game of Thrones, I should have this complete.

Now, since I painted this without regard to army lists, is there a viable list in here?

Blood Angels Army Display Board

I have a lot of Blood Angels, so a 2'x2' board is not going to display them all. my goal is for this board to display my Armies on Parade BA, as opposed to my two other painting styles BA groups. I've never made a display board. I wasn't even happy with the way my realm of battle board came out. Learning on that experience, I am not going to attempt to apply a wash to the whole board. I need to keep the contrast down so the models show up. At least that is my theory.

This is the first step. The board was cut, my styrofoam hills added, along with rhino bits and sand. My goal is to let this dry till this evening, and then remove the spillover sand and see what other details I need to add. The unpainted version of this is pretty close to the colors I am going for so I think my BA will really stand out on this.

Now I've got to get back to finishing my sanguinary guard! Then on to tanks....sometimes this feels like a job

Blood Angels Batch Painting WIP

Lots of details are not complete on these guys because I am painting them in large batches. I wanted to share them because I think the air brush shading worked out pretty well. The Sternguard models are my least favorite so far because I had to remove so many damaged details. They are also on temporary bases while I finish up another batch of my resin bases.

I've got one squad of vanguard vets on the way, followed by vehicle painting. My intent is to get all of the main painting done this weekend, and then build a display board. I am just not sure if I have painted enough models for armies on parade. What I have so far is:

1 dreadnought (1)

1 tactical squad (10)

2 terminator squads (10)

1 death company squad with jump packs and lemartes (6)

1 Librarian Terminator

1 Chaplain Terminator

1 Corbulo

1 Asteroth

1 Mephiston

1 vanguard squad (7)

1 death company rhino

1 land raider

2 baals

1 vindicator

Because I am limiting myself to this new style of painting, my unit choice is pretty weird. I think I may need to find a way to get a squad of sanguinary guard and dante in the mix.

The display board is going to be basically a the same color as the bases. I plan on two levels, and will embed broken imperial vehicles all across the surface.

Grey Knight Army Progress

I've switched gears to Blood Angels, and soon will switch to IG vehicles for Heroes of Armageddon, so I wanted to put some better shots of my Grey Knights up here. After buying all of those GK kits, I ended up painting only two new miniatures. The rest are old GK or Inquisitor miniatures that I never got around to painting. I am really happy with how the army is coming, but BA are calling.

Grey Knights

I've had quite the month of travel, so few updates, but much speed painting between trips! I now have a tiny Grey Knights army nearing completion. I went really dark with these guys. I mixed a small amount of boltgun metal into black and used that as my base coat. I then slowly changed the angle of my airbrushing, increasing the amount of boltgun metal in the mixture until I had a nice dark gradient. Since the miniatures are cool and dark, I gave them warm and light bases to provide contrast. The bases are really simply. Forgeworld weathering powder mixed with water on top of army painter bone color. Nothing more than that!

I have also kick started my Blood Angels armies on parade army. I am still not sure I am going to finish in time, but the new Finecast miniatures re-enthused me. I have a new tactical squad, vanguard squad, terminator squad, and sternguard squads to share.

Now... Finecast..... I love that metal is gone, and I love the detail on some of the finecast miniatures I managed to purchase, but the quality of my sternguard, vanguard, and terminator librarian is just terrible. I had to cut off large parts of each model in order to deal with huge resin bubbles. Anyone looking at my Armies on Parade army will be able to see that my newer squads have weird details missing from them. On the other hand, I bought a box of raptors that is simply stunning. Overall I am thrilled that metal is gone. I just want my quality back.

The other thing taking time is work on my Heroes of Armageddon contribution. I'll be posting some WIP shots soon for the two devil dogs that are joining Dave Taylor's Steel Legion. I'd like to personalize the tanks, so if you have some cool name ideas, put them in the comments below. I was thinking of putting DTSL-159, DTSL-314 on the tanks as serial numbers.