Death Company Rhino PT2

I decided last minute to add a gunner to the rhino. I guess I really haven't committed to changing the painting style of my blood angels yet. The gunner was paint in my now 2 year old method, which looks ok, but is a far cry from my cleaner style. The new codex pushes the BA as super detail oriented makes my old minimalist stuff look a little out of place. The rhino itself is in my new style, and since it is my only death company rhino so far the fact that it does not match my old tanks is not so bad. The kicker is going to be when I paint the new Baals and my Land Raider. I really want to go for a clean bright look and then sponge damage them.

I think the reason this is so hard is that that my original BA were the first new army I painted after my first go around with heart surgery. They were painted for fun, and with an eye towards getting some actual gaming in. The rules were easy for me to digest, the list building was easy, and I could play the game without having to remember too many special rules. It was a much simpler epoch. Of course, now I have a reason to build a vindicator, death company dread army!

So, back on target, the forge world powers, the dirt dusting, and the storm bolter have not been completed yet. I need to finish painting the headlights as well. I just forgot about them until I looked at the photo!

Death Company Rhino With FW Doors

My advance order from GW did not come today, so lacking anything new to paint I started on some original death company miniatures and the Rhino pictured here. I am really not pleased with the top hatch, so it gets replaced tomorrow. I think the right procedureis to lay down the X in red first and then paint the black over it. That way it is much easier to mask off the X rather than try to tape around it.

Other steps for the rhino

1. paint a new top hatch
2. paint exhausts and storm bolter
3. paint chipping using sponge method with bolt gun metal followed by an orange rust wash
4. add loads of purity seals
5. put on tracks and layer on rust using rust colored pigments
6. Dust undercarriage with snakebite to simulate dust.

Since my codex has not arrived, I was not entirely sure how to equip the original death company models. In the end I decided on bolt pistols and chainswords for 6 of them and 1 guy with a BP and a powersword. I treated the minis to the same black/grey air brushing, which gives them a very smooth appearance.

Blood Talons?

Like a lot of BA players, I am busy looking at my old models and trying to figure out what I have to do to get them to work with the new rules. After watching the Beasts of War demonstrate a furioso dreadnought tearing through some terminators, I've decided that I would like to field that option.

So what kind of weapons is my dread equipped with here? These are the forge world power fists, but could they count as blood talons? My BA order has not come in yet so I have no idea what blood talons look like.

In addition to re-equiping units, I am tempted to just paint a new army. My existing force looks pretty good, and it was certainly a lot of fun to play on the table top, but my painting skills are very different now. I am not even sure I could reproduce the orange-red color of my original BA. Maybe the right thing to do is just paint some new units/vehicles, and then end of life my old stuff as it become redundant. That would allow me to field new units faster. It is kind of weird viewing armies as paintings in time, rather than slowly accumulated work.

Why Speed Painting? More Termagants and Warriors of Course!

Since I am huge Blood Angles fan, here are some WIP Tyranids! I have never played these guys, so I have no idea why I am madly painting the army. As I think about it, I don't think I ever played the first edition tyranids that started this for me. So why all the speed painting? I have no idea. My rationalization is that I am really practicing my speed painting skills by working on the gazillion tyranids necessary for a list. The problem is that now I feel compelled to have a list. A side effect of this is that all of these tyranids are filling up my shelf space.

Back to the most important thing, gun color. I tried foundation yellow and foundation brown on these guys, and think I will standardize on the three colors I have painted so far. Brown for the weird christmas tree guns, yellow for the warrior guns, and orange on whatever gun the regular gants have.

Hormagaunt and 1st Edition Termagant

I finally glued together a whole host of termagants and finally based my hormagaunts today. While gluing the brain pack things onto the hormaguants I decided to experiment with two old first edition termagants. I spent about 2 minutes on each miniature, not including time spent using a hair dryer, or time spent basing. (yeah... the basing is pretty bad on these guys!) I don't exactly hate these old minis, but I can't put my finger on what I don't like about them. I do have about 50 of them, so if I were serious about playing the game it would be worth simple greening them and starting over. I think the old sculpts might detract from my aesthetic appreciation for the game.

On a side note, anyone have a good color idea for the guns? I tried pink and was not thrilled, and am not digging orange that much. These are beginning to look like halloweennids to me.

Magnetizing Your Paints!

Seeing as how space was a premium on my painting table, my wife suggested that I buy some spice racks. This sounded like a good idea and we headed to the container store to pick up this as well as other home improvement items. The thing is, there were these metal strips and magnet packs that kept calling to me. I know it seems insane, but I bought a bunch and busily glued magnets to a bunch of my paint pots. I probably need to buy a few more magnet strips, but I really like the way this is turning out. The paints are easy to see, reach, and out of my way unless I need them. The satisfying clunk sound they make when they click onto the wall is pretty cool as well.

Valdor Tank Hunter Verdigris

I just added a little bit of verdigris to the copper areas on the tank. I am regretting the wash around the metal plates a bit since it makes the tank a little messier than it was when I started.

The tank was base coated black

Armor Sections

1. Air brush of vallejo model color middlestone 70882
2. Air brush a dusting of vallejo model color sand yellow 70916

Gun Barrel

1. Air brush tin bitz, leaving black in the crevices
2. Mix tin bitz with bolt gun metal and dust the gun barrel
3. Blue Azurman wash towards the tip

The decals are coming next.

Valdor Tank Hunter

After all of that prep work on the resin, the valdor was ready to paint. I learned an important lesson last night. Stop being stubborn. Rather than keep putting foundation paints in my airbrush and having to deal with paint clogs every few minutes, I just picked up a different brand of paint and tossed it in. Granted the tank does not match my previous units at all, but I think a few Death Corps of Kreig insignia and it would fit right in. Resin is such a paint to build, but such a joy to paint. As usual there will be an abundance of posts as I slowly weather this tank up.