Hell Brute WIP 1

I dug around yesterday and found one of the two Hell Brutes I had in storage. I think this is a sign of just how cool the new Death Guard models are. This guy would have continued gathering dust if I hadn't been inspired by the new Dark Imperium box. I feel like I've missed out on this wonderful miniature for years. Clearly I knew it would be great when it came out since I bought a spare, but that is almost habit at this point when a new box comes out. I think I have 6 unpainted DA tac squads! 

I'm spending a little more time on this miniature than the rest. The base coat is cleaner and more precise. I also added a fleshier look to him. I think once I have a few rounds of enamels on this guy he will start to shine. I am really digging this. 

Old Chaos Versus New Chaos

I've had loads of boxes of Chaos miniatures sitting around for ages, so I figured it was time to grab some ancient bits and build myself a second squad for my budding Nurgle army. I tried to emulate the painting style I used on the new miniatures despite the old miniatures having bizarre areas of half realized detail and poor casting all around. I'm glad to have another squad because that means I am close to playing the game, but I wouldn't hold the dwarf squad out as an example of either inspired or good painting. Painting the old models puts the new ones in perspective. GW has finally mastered model making. The new kits are light years better than the old ones. At least with the dwarf squad I have some miniatures to test the basing with.

I was planning on painting the hell brute from the last starter set. How have those models aged? Are they still worth painting?

Screamers of Tzeentch: Back In The Saddle

I've spent so long building my Thunderhawk, that I have had very little time to do some painting, so when a few hours became available I decided to paint up some Chaos Deamons I had tucked away in my GW closet. (yes...a full closet...a mini store....) I learned quite a few things from picking up the brush and air brush after months and months of non-painting.

The first thing is that having a filler army, or an army that you paint in between your 'real' armies is really nice to have. I have two filler armies, Deamons and Chaos Marines. When I am hesitating to paint my blood angels, templars, ultramarines, krieg, tallarn, or voystroyan, I can always pick up a unit of Daemons or CM to brush up my skills, try new things, and generally get myself back into the groove. The reason this is important is that there is no self imposed guildlines on my painting. I don't care if my Deamons are themed or not. I do not care one bit about the army list. I have never played Daemons nor will I likely play them. (well maybe at the 1500 pt range someday!) Basically filler armies or units are no stress. I want my Ultramarine force to look spectacular. That brings a lot of baggage along with it.

The other great thing about filler armies/units that that they introduce a pause in army building. I am going to paint a small Black Templar force soon, but after that I am unsure what should follow. A huge purchase of Tallarn would argue for them to be the next big thing. However the Horus Heresy book has thrown a wrench into my whole plan. All those FW units I have been hoarding for my Ultramarines may have to end up as Loyalist Emperor's Children. (the screamers may have been a test of my purple skills for the ECs)

It feels good to be back in the saddle.

Abbadon 2.0

I did some work on Abbadon's base that I think worked out fairly well. I started with the plastic Chaos terminator lord base, added some rhino junk, and then used the new texture paint to fill in all the spaces in-between the rubble. The texture paint worked out quite nicely, but the down side is that I used nearly 1/2 a pot of the stuff. I just don't see how texture paint is economical, and this is coming from a guy who buys everything GW makes!

I still need to paint quite a few parts on Abbadon. I was thinking of giving him a glowing green sword to match the deamons I planted up earlier. I think green might look nice with the purple cloak that has not been added yet. After that and I get to weather up the base and his feet, and then put down some brown static grass.

Also, my wife picked up some white poster board which I used as a backdrop for the photo. What do you think? It feels a little weird to me to not see the mini with a background, but the detail does look clearer than before.

EDIT --It is late here, so the photos are not perfect, but I decided to go with the red daemon sword and purple cloak.

Abbadon Finecast / Plastic Hybrid Painting WIP

A while ago I cut up my finecast Abaddon in an effort to up-scale him. The finecast mini has a lot of really interesting detail, but is a bit small for the Warmaster himself. I took a break from cleaning my 'office' (mostly miniatures) today and decided to put down a few licks of paint. Now when I chopped apart my original Abaddon to make this guy, I left his torso and head alone. Though small, I wanted no ambiguity as to who this figure represented. Now that his head is painted and am I am ready to attach it to the mini, I find that the model just does not fit. Did anyone else experience this when they put their Abaddon together? i suppose a little finecast surgery is now in order, but I had to do that after painting so much of him.

Daemons So Far..

I completed a squad of 10 pink horrors, adding them to the 5 metal ones I had already painted years ago. since the models were so different I decided to paint them purplish to match the greater deamon. This way I have pink and blue horrors.  I'll try to get better photos of these, as the pink horror models are really quite nice. The Chaos Spawn models are a different story altogether....

I hated painting the chaos spawn. In every way I feel like I should love the models.

Pro-Spawn

• They are Spawn!
• They have spikes
• They are fallen-fallen (sort of like twice baked potatoes)

Con-Spawn

• The models are ugly
• The joints between limbs do not fit properly
• Details are poorly sculpted
• They are huge, which amplifies the detail problems
• There are really hard to paint because there are few distinct details. 

So how would I fix spawn? I'd put broken bits of space marine armor all around them, hanging off their tortured frames. If there were more to distinct areas to paint it would be easier to give the impression that these are space marines who failed the emperor, failed their legions, and then failed their chaos patrons. They are thrice damned! Thrice-baked potato, does that work?

Building A Better Abbadon

Abbadon is one of the original Sons of Horus/ Lunar Wolves, however the highly detailed finecast model just does not match his age or awesomeness. What the fin cast model does provide is an easy to dissect base from which to build a better Abbadon.

This conversion is not perfect, but the flaws are easily hidden with the terminator chaos lords cloak. Basically I took the shoulders and torso of the finecast model and married it to the plastic chaos terminator lords legs. The goal was to make it look good from the front. The back could be easily hidden with a cloak, which would make the model look more imposing in any case. After the body had its new legs, I used plastic terminator arm pieces to extend the arms holding the weapons. The original Abbadon model has weird stumpy arms, but huge hands. This turns out to be a benefit, because the forearm of the finecast model ends up fitting really well onto the plastic arm extensions.

All I need to do now is paint this guy up in black legion colors  and give him an honor guard.

Daemons Based! Army WIP

I've now based 30 models, and am nearing the place where I could actually take these guys to a game store and play a game. Given that this is an accidental army, meant originally to used with the Chaos Marines Codex, I have a weird assortment of units. I think I can pull together the following list:

1 Greater Daemon 250
x15 blood letters 280 (plus all upgrades)
x15 blood letters 280 (plus all upgrades)
x5 Plague Bearers 75
x5 Pink Horrors 85
Daemon Prince 80
Soul Grinder (If I paint it) 160

This is about 1210 points, so I am a little shy of a 1500 point game. I could paint up another 10 Pink Horrors in addition to the Soul Grinder. Do people play at 1k? Maybe I should just try a small game.  Ultimately I just want to see some Daemons on the table. At the bogey man of the 40k universe, I think it would be really cool to see some marines or guard assaulted by daemonic forces. That fits my movie/fluff based vision for what a game should look like. Winning a game played this way does not even matter so long as really cool stuff happens.

Oh My God, It's Full Of Daemons!

The Daemon army progresses! With a major milestone accomplished at work, and Moby songs in my head, I sat down and pushed through all of the tooth/hoof/blade portions of the Bloodletters. I was worried about the green blades, but after getting more of them completed and the first eight based, I am pretty pleased. I don't think I have ever painted this fast.  The messy job of casting more bases has started, and I have little doubts that the army will be done by this weekend. I picked up one of those half robotic spider/ half deamon mutant vehicles things to add to the army, and some older models to rebase, and I think I am good to go. I was supposed to be making a slight diversion into chaos in order to recover from speed painting my minty neurons, but like many slight diversions, it snow balled.

Maybe I'll take a break from my Daemons to paint some squats or something... who knows.

Chaos Dreadnought and Changer of Ways WIP

 Continuing the speed-painting-a-thon, I decided to paint up a Chaos dreadnought that I nicked off ebay for a steal. If the price had not been so good I might not have bothered, given how much I dislike metal models. In another transaction I managed to pick up some dreadnought weapons as well. One of the things I like about new models is that edges are crisp, and there is little difficulty in figuring out where to paint. The older models require a measure of looseness in painting style that works great for speed painting, but makes it difficult of me to paint clean models. Despite this, I really enjoyed dousing this old guy in paint. I think he looks great with the army.

Given my inability to actually finish a model, while painting the dread, I decided to paint up a changer of ways greater daemon as well. The palette is completely different, and will fit with the all daemon army that I've decided to build to complement the Chaos Marines. I suppose I could magnetize the daemons to their bases, and have square or round bases depending on game system, however I am not sure I want to slow down my painting with all that drilling. My wife loves the Daemon, so I must have done something right!

Chaos Possessed & Ultra Marine Traitors

and now back to our regular programing.....

After the fun I had painting the berzerkers, I decided I had to paint up the box of possessed space marines, I've had sitting on my bench for several years as well. I love the models, however I had a really hard time understanding how the paint them. The fact that the hard sharp armor is melting into daemon form, makes it difficult to paint sections without blending them all together. I decided to use my airbrush and paint them as if they were turning into pure daemons. I tried to add just enough areas of hard edges for contract that the minis would be interesting. I am not sure if they look like they go with the whole army, but the basing does tie them in a little more. All of the daemons I paint are going to be vivid colors, so there is some rational for it.

The next thing any Chaos force needs is a unit of turncoat ultramarine terminators. I painted these out to see if I could reproduce the heavily weathered ultra-marine I painted eons ago. I failed. I have no idea what I did wrong, but the mojo was off, and these guys just turned out alright.

All of this Chaos stuff does not mean that my Necrons are done. I am just taking a break so I can focus on some random colors. This is sort of like a painting interlude!

Chaos Khorne Berserkers

I started painting this squad years ago. In fact, they sat so long that when I decided to paint them I had to wash them under the sink remove years of dust from the partially completed paint jobs. My techniques have changed quite a bit from those used when these guys were started, but I am really pleased with these none the less. I think I just needed a non-Necron diversion. I wanted to paint a squad start to finish. I wanted to toss these guys on the test bases you see, and just enjoy their ferocity every time I glance at them in the cabinet. I might even paint some more Chaos goodies now. It was so fun just painting something different that I feel like I may need to paint that old Chaos dreadnought I found on ebay. I have no idea how to put together a chaos army, but I think if I just paint what I want, I'll end up with something enjoyable on the table.

So I've been bit by the Chaos Marines bug. Does that mean I intend to paint cleanly and carefully? Nope. My plan is to speed...er...even speedier paint a force of these guys. I just want to enjoy loose brush strokes and the freedom of heavy washes, weathering, and verdigris. How long will this chaos spurt last? I think just long enough for me to use up all those black rusty test bases I painted up for no apparent reason. I may do something I rarely do, which is go back and take finished older miniatures, and weather them up, rebase them and make them fit in some kind of visually coherent way.

Astral Claws Centurion Helmet Crest + Corpse Taker

Timing is everything. Ron over at FTW just posted about Roman style helmet crests. As my first real green-stuff attempt, I sculpted one of these for my Astral Claws Sergeant test miniature. I am not sure if I am going to do this for all of my Astral Claws, or just this one miniature. In Roman legions, the crest went front to back for normal legionnaires, and perpendicular to that (as shown on my sergeant) for officers. This would be a neat way to make centurions and sergeants stand out from rank and file astartes. It would be fun to see a squad of Astral Claws that did not side with their chapter. The minis could form a little diorama showing them throwing down their weapons.

The other mini posted above is the beginnings of my Corpse Taker. For those who have not bought IA9 and read it over and over again like I have, the Corpse Taker unit is a small Apothecary squad that removed gene seed from Astral Claws and non Astral Claws wounded. Basically they try to collect all of the gene seed they can in order to create more legionnaires. This is just about the worst thing one chapter can do to another. Naturally I had to paint one unit up! I used Fabius Bile's backpack thing along with regular apothecary bits.

In terms of color, I am still unsure how to paint white cleaning. No matter how smooth I think the blending is, the moment I take a photo the edge highlights of pure skull white stand out like sore thumbs. I plan to paint the shoulder pads blue and gold like regular troopers. I was also thinking about adding highlighted battle damage as well as blood spatters. These are gruesome marines after all.