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.

Daemonhosts

So my knights now have space orangoutangs and daemonhosts accompanying them into battle! It is such a strange looking but fun force. Not bad for iPhone photos.

Grey Knights W/Warm colored bases

Since my Grey Knights are predominately dark cool colors, I decided to use a warm light colored base to set off the miniatures. These quick iPhone pictured don't quite do the minis justice, but they do show how contrasting temperatures can help with presentation. I need to be careful going forward to not make the reds on the GK too warm. I can do this by using blue washes to shade the reds rather than red or brown washes.

My bases are dirt simple. I painted them with Army painter bone, and then used the dark earth forge world weathering powder as a wash. Afterwards I went back over them wiping off most of the powder from the raised surfaces. The bases are plain, but I think that helps the dark miniatures stand out.

Monkeys/Jokero With Grey Knights in the Background

I took my light box down while cleaning my office, so these photos were done with flash. I have been paining Grey knights for a few days, which you can see in the backdrop. Since my knights are dark metallics, I thought the army needed some lighter colors. I added Jokero and Demon hosts in bright light colors in order to spread the color spectrum out a bit. My wife does not like the blue gem eyes. At least I did not go with my original color choice of red gems eyes!

Now, on the models themselves. Jokero are small. The Grey Knights in the background are the old metal Grey Knights, which are already a little smaller than the current range. I had some trouble with the smaller scale earlier in the week while trying to paint some mordians. Despite the difficulty in painting, I really like this scale. The Jokero and Mordians look appropriate standing next to space marines.

Since the grey knights army is now in full swing, I started pumping out resin bases. Since the models are dark and cool (mostly) I am going to go for a warm cracked desert theme. I read somewhere online that mixing color temperature could enhance a miniatures presentation. Well, here goes!

Grey Knight Dreadnought

I am in some kind of rush painting today, and just randomly tackled the grey knight dreadnought that I converted from the AoBR set. I also speed painted some guardsman built out of random old bits mixed with the new Cadian set. I am not sure if anyone else gets this way, but I think I pressed on with my painting when I should have stopped. The paint is quite thick in some places, kind of a departure. On the other side of things, I did enjoy just slopping the wash on the imperial guard. Sometimes it just feels good.

Psyker Update and Dreadnought Grey Knight Conversion

I've got a few updates. I just spent a hour fitting the dreadnought together. I am not sure about some things, but overall I am happy with the repose. I cut las cannon barrels off of a razor back spru and glued them to the multi-melta, as well as adding assorted bits. I am not sure where I will get a missile launcher. Maybe this guy will only have one long rang weapon.

My psyker is going well. I painted his force staff, and did some metal clean up. He still needs facial hair. I am thinking a nice orange color would look nice.

Dreadnought Sarcophagus WIP

I have an unpainted AoBR dreadnought, and all the miniatures for a grey knights army, so I thought I would see if I could convincingly convert the dread to be a grey knight hero's final resting place. I am not sure if I like the design, it seems a little long, but it does look doable. Anyone have any good links to grey knights dreads?

So far I am thinking I need to shave off most of the existing sarcophagus so I get a nice flat perpendicular surface. After that I can add the new one, and then green stuff the edges. I am not sure what to use to make all of the cables though.

The force so far.

1x Grand Master Stern

10x Terminators (1 psi cannon)

18x PA Grey Knights (3 psi cannons and 1 incinerator)

1x Inquisitor (will borrow from imperial guard army to make retinue)

1x Dread (I am think las cannon and missile launcher)

(lots of voystroyans that could be inducted IG)