Cassius Assault Ram Nearing Completion

 I made a lot of progress on the 2nd original predator and rhino, but those will have to wait till the lighting improves in my office/painting den. On the other hand, the Cassius is so large that I have a hard time getting photos of it under any lighting conditions, so may I present the C.A.R. #1 of the Ultramarines!

Despite all kinds of build problems, I have been having an immensely good time painting this guy. I know I said I was going to add some 4th company green to it, but that may have to wait. I am not going to dust the RAM like I did the tanks, since this thing would be far away from dust, but what about weathering?  Are RAMS's one use kind of things? I love the chipped metal effect on the tanks, so I am eager to do it to this guy, but would a CAR ever be reused, I mean this thing crashes into starships and titans as its SOP.

Cassius Assault Ram, LR Proteus, And Two Old Rhino Chasis

I still haven't painted an Ultramarine as part of this force, but I have started painting my LR proteus, the Cassius Assualt Ram, an original metal predator destructor, and another rhino.  It is really weird to have these many vehicles painted before I have even put down a base coat on a squad, but I am just enjoying painting them so much I don't want to stop.  The two OOP vehicles will probably get a green stripe with the ultramarines symbol on it in white. I'd like to honor the original owner, and it gives me a nice way to add a bit of color. I may add green stripes to the Ram as well, since I think it would be really cool to see the U symbol on top of something other than blue.

so does anyone else paint the way I do? Despite loving all these models, I still batch painted them. After the Mint-crons I was not planning on tackling another large army so soon, yet I find myself with the beginnings of one of the largest armies I have ever painted. Why did I wait 20 years to finally paint some Ultramarines?

Bases Cast & Cassius Assault Ram WIP

I don't know about other peoples experiences, but my Cassius Assault Ram has been a complete pain to build. I am having all kinds of problems, from what should be an absolutely trivial build. I mean, the thing is a box right? That aside, I thought I should post up some photos of the interior of the Assault Ram. I love what FW has done with this kit's interior even it it will never be seen once put together. In order to help theme the army together, I used graveyard earth + bone white over black to shade the inside. Those same colors are used on my bases, just applied differently. Hopefully the common colors will gel the whole force since I am using a variety of models of slightly different scale due to the age of some of my kits.

I am really happy with how my bases are coming along. They are easy to mass produce, easy to paint, and should be fun to load up with detail. I am going to be painting a lot of bikes for this army, so I am thrilled with how the bike bases came out. I wish the detail was not going to be mostly hidden.

Hopefully tonight I will be able to get the cassius sanded and ready for paint. I have the ram, the proteus, an original rhino, and a metal predator in the queue. I have a contemptor cleaned and ready for magnets, but I am really itching to do some painting rather than just resin clean up.

Ultramarine Basing

My Ultramarines project was put on hold for a business trip to the UK, which lent itself to a forgeworld buying spree at Warhammer World, but did not mean much progress painting. Before my trip I started working on some bases for my ultras. It took some time for my master sculpt to be ready to cast, but I can now produce streets with sidewalks pretty easily. With some bases ready for the first stage of casting, I thought I would paint up some of the masters just to see what the force will look like color-wise. For these bases I went with a black undercoat, graveyard air brush, and then bleached bone dry brush. Along the edges of the sidewalk I placed a diluted dev mud wash. I was thinking on top of this I could add, marble ruins, as well as some dead looking static grass.  I think the colors are meshing well enough for me to proceed.  Even though I have a load of FW vehicle stuff to paint, I just feel in the mood to make the armies bases. If only I could hurry the silicone curing process so I could get the molds made for the bases themselves.

One of the questions I now have is whether I should attempt to mix into the force some FW demios rhinos and predators. (Being so close to FW forced my hand. I know own 7 of the PH kits along with a Cassius)
In addition to my FW order awaiting me when I got home, I had a package with an original rhino and one of the rhinos with the meta predator destructor conversion kits.  The old rhino/predator came painted in 4th company Ultramarine colors,  which I am likely carry through during the repaint. It seems right  to honor the person who so carefully painted these tanks decades ago. It makes you wonder what will happen to all of your miniatures after you move on. (either from the game or from life) Very few people consider miniatures art, so collections could easily end up in the dump. What a strange and wonderful hobby we have!

Tau out for photography

I was recently (should be airborne by the time this posts) in the uk, and found a way to sneak out to warhammer world in between meetings. To my surprise the tau cabinet the was mostly empty with a little card saying they were out for photography. How cool is that!

Next time I am brining an army. Their tables are just spectacular.

Ultramarines Land Raider Prometheus

As promised, here are some shots of my Land Raider Prometheus coming together. Sometimes unpainted forgeworld porn is ok right?

At this point I am only partway through cleaning the FW bits, but I had to glue the main body together. Already I can see the impact finecast has had on me. FW resin is delicate and brittle, Finecast is flexible and forgiving. I've already had to fix pieces I damaged inadvertently while building. On the other hand, the FW resin is just beautiful.

So I know I need to paint the thing, but as I alluded to the in whole 'FW =porn' statement earlier, I am just enjoying the model as is. This is unusual for me, as I rarely appreciate an unpainted model. It is through the act of painting that it somehow becomes real to me. In this case, I just like playing with it as is. (By playing I mean that I sit and marvel at its design, not actually gaming with an unpainted model!)

So the point of this rambling is that I should be painting, but I really just like looking at it, imagining what it could look like. This does give me the opportunity to ask if Sgt Chronos is wearing anything even close to heresy era. This has to be his ride!

Original Rhino, Predator, And Vindicator Refurb Pt 3

The transfers and base coats are done. Most of the details are not painted, but enough is done for me to see that this is the Ultramarines force I have always wanted. There are a lot of missing elements that will help tell the story. One of those is the stowage that I plan to add to each tank. I picked up some gauss to experiment with as well, which I hope will make one of the rhinos look like it is carrying a lot of stuff.  My plan is to build a replacement top hatch that has the equipment on it, which I can remove and use as objectives, or just have sitting separately. Another missing element is a deep warm red, which will be added by way of the sensor part of the spot light bit. I have all four of those ready for paint, and can't wait to add some warmth, and gloss to the model. Over all, I think this is not bad for a lazy Saturday!

I think I may want to enter this army in the Armies on Parade competition, but that makes my Herculean effort spent painting minty Necrons a wash. It also means I will have to build a new display board. Additionally the competition says that FW stuff is not allowed. Ideally I want to use my FW dreads, LR, and early mark troops, but I think that might be frowned upon.  In any case I plan to paint up a squad of scout bikers to add to the army.

Original Rhino, Predator, And Vindicator Refurb Pt 2

My MKI rhino painting factory has begun! First off, I had a bear of a time cleaning up the remainder of the tanks. Some of the models were in just terrible condition after I had stripped most of the paint away. In order to deal with the deficiencies, I am going to heavily weather these guys, making the broken bits battle damage, and the chunky repaint areas rust. In these photos the first round of dev mud is on the tanks, hopefully settling in as very light shading. I can see some areas where the wash is pooling kind of grayish, but it is too late to do much about it. The next step will be the rust weathering around the rivets. After that I'll apply the decals before chipping the paint and adding the dust on the tracks and lower portions of the tanks. I've decided to add a lot of dark grey storage containers on the tanks, as well as search lights and hunter killer missiles on each vehicle. I think the additions really make the models stand out,  with the added bonus of making them look more uniform.

In the last photo you can see the beginnings of my new bases. I've decided to put the marine on dusty broken streets. I think it fits with the ultra marines. I may try to add some ruined imperial columns or something to the larger dreadnought bases.

It may sound a bit odd at this late stage, but I still don't know if this color scheme will work on a regular old space marine trooper.  So far I have only painted a single Ultramarine. Fortunately, the vindicator model came with a tank commander, so I am trying this technique out on hime prior to stripping the model and painting it mechanics red.