Trygon Primed!

In a fit of awesomeness, the local GW Tzar offered to let me paint the store model. This thing is absolutely wicked cool. I plan on using the light green method used on my gene stealer for the soft fleshy parts, and some contrasting color for the bone plates. I was thinking of dark brown, with yellow streaks or a muddy purple with yellow streaks. Orange is kind of appealing to me as well. I may try to Iron Man this tonight and tomorrow so I can take it back to the store. It really comes down to how fast washes dry, and how involved the base should be. I received the model built, but, I think I need to sculpt some undulations onto the base, add reeds, maybe an impaled guards man, or perhaps ruined weathered tank bits. I am really looking forward to this!

Speed Painted Catachans

I decided to try and get one more unit painted before the year ends, but it looks like I will only get half of the squad done. I suppose I could count them as Inquisitional Guard, but that is not really in the spirit of things.

Oh, this would be post number 100!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Dark Angels Green

So after a whirlwind trip to Boston followed by San Diego, I am back home and enjoying the last hours of 2009. Since I do not have a black recipe for RW yet, I decided to give the regular green dark angels a try. DA green is surprisingly difficult. I am really glad I tried a single gunner rather than painting up the whole tac squad needed for my list. The gunners paint job is acceptable but not great. I really need a better recipe before I paint a whole squad.

I noticed that I have 99 posts for the year if I include this one. Maybe I should paint up something else before midnight so I get a nice even 100 posts in!

Speed Basing!

I had not planned to post again this year, since I am traveling and will not be home till the new year, but I could not resist one more. I figure a lot of people out there are speed building armies right now. Since I just sped through a bunch of basing, I thought I should share. This time around I went for a darker look. As usual I started with a bunch of sand, broken tank bits, and little squares of plastic cut with regular old scissors. Once the glue had set I primed the bases black with a lot of primer. Don't skimp here because the paint helps the base stay together. I then took a tank sized drybrush and mixed up some deheneb stone and chaos black to form a dirty grey color. I used this liberally over all of the bases, following up with a very heavy wash of devlan mud. The final part is my favorite technique right now. I use Tamiya Acrylic Thinner X-20A to make a very transparent blazing orange wash. Then just cover each ruined machinery bit and a few random spots with it. It is possible to knock out a whole army's worth of bases in an afternoon if you assembly line the process. I did steal my wife's hairdryer to speed the process along!

Happy basing, and happy holidays!

Deathwing Victory

My deathwing fought their first battle this past weekend at the local GW, so I thought I should commemorate the event with a class photo! It was only a 1030 point game, but I had a really great time, and can't thank my opponent Bill enough. As some know, the east coast of the US was blanketed by snow this past weekend. I faced a drop pod army captained by Lysander so I did not get to do much deep striking.

I've said ti before, but after that game I can't wait until I have raven wing painted up to join these guys in battle. I think the added maneuverability is going to be a lot of fun, freeing up my terminators to gather kill points.

In terms of painting I have added a lot of little details to the land raider, which are probably visible in the photos. I tried to capture the color and the shading of these guys by using a white poster board to reflect natural light.

This might me my last post this year, so happy holidays to everyone!

Deathwing Snow Fest

It is snowing like crazy here on the east coast, so I spent the day being super productive hobby wise. I started by making some snow bases for my space wolves. I think the jury is still out on the bases, but I will put up a stage by stage and recipe so others can see what I did. I then went back to my roots and built 11 deathwing ruined city bases. I made them a little darker, and added a lot of broken tank bits.

Just for fun I finished my last three deathwing troops! This has felt like a marathon, so I am so excited to have these guys done and based (ok two of the white dark angels transfers are going on the two guys with green power fists, but this basically counts as done!)

I have the small PA troops + rhino, and then the Raven wing, which includes 1 master on land speeder, 1 regular speeder, 6 bikes, and one attack bike. I am not sure which order I will paint these in. I think the raven wing will come first just because I have never painted a SM bike!

So now I want to game.....too bad there is a mountain of snow outside, and I have never driven my 10 ton rear wheel drive car in it before!

Deathwing Heavy Flamer

With these two guys done, I only have three more terminators to paint! That will give me 2 squads, belial, and a land raider completed. I am really looking forward to getting all of this done so I can go back and add details at my leisure. I have already practiced painting the apothecary symbol, so I think that will be my first embellishment post completion. I need to create 6 more bases, though I think I will do a new batch of 11 so they all match.

To tie the models in with their bases I am thinking about using some of the black forge world powder lightly dusted knee level down from each model. Has anyone tried this?

I tried to make convincing blood gore using tamiya clear red paint, but it just does not look right to me.

Belial

I have just finished Belial, the Captain of the Deathwing. Compared to some of the other terminators he is a little bland. I am considering painting his right leg green, and then adding a larger version of the red over green stripe heraldry as seen on the trooper to the left of him. Overall I am very happy with how the deathwing is turning out, and am looking forward to the final 5 guys being don so I can just lavish details on them. I am convinced that the black bases are the way to go since they provide the most contrast. Maybe I should raise Belial's base up a bit, or add more ruined detail. So far his only distinguishing characteristics are his chaos lord lightening claws.

I have not even constructed the Ravenwing part of the force yet.

My Imperial Guard army is not forgotten, even though I have loads of bikes and speeders to paint. I finally picked up a box of Catachans, so they will be represented in the force. I am really tempted to paint them up with orange jump suits and give them prison numbers.