To Buy Or Not To Buy...A Metal Thunderhawk

I've wanted to build/buy/ebay acquire, a space marine thunderhawk for some time. When a metal thunder hawk came up on ebay I considered the purchase. I remember really liking the model, but as the all metal hobbyist torture kit on ebay was not built, it was hard to see what the final model would look like. There are so few photos of these things around, they might as well be white whales. Rather than plunk down enough money to buy a forgeworld resin thunderhawk on an unknown ancient metal quantity, I decided to take some plans I found online to make the original one, and see how it would look in my collection.

Good thing I did.

I have no idea why I thought the metal one was cool. It is not. The forgeworld thunderhawks are so much better it is not even worth collecting the metal one. (unless you are into hobby torture...in that case all yours!)

Does anyone like the old model? Outside of the marine gunners in the wing tips, there is not much I like about it.  I would not buy an RTBO1 Beaky marine either, so maybe there is a limit to the nostalgia.

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.

Thunderwolves and Long Fangs A Break From My Ultras

I am not invested in how these Space wolves turn out, which is totally liberating when it comes to painting. I get to try all kinds of different blending techniques, and not worry about consistency between miniatures. When I painted the first two minis it was really just a way for me to stretch my legs with the new GW paints. I chose Space Wolves because for all practical purposes I had not painted them before (ok--a couple of years ago I painted three of them) A few dogs/wolves later and now it looks like I might end up with a full SW army. In keeping with the long tradition of the SW chapter, I am only kitting my Long Fangs out with missile launchers. Anything less would be un-wolfy.

Now while I am painting these guys with a loose, sort of sloppy feel, I do have some SW minis that I should spend some more time on. I managed to pick up a couple of squads of 13th company a while back, which I think will add some great character to the force.

So, I suppose I have to paint two more long fang squads right........

Thunderwolves Underway & A Haradrim/Tallarn Mashup

Canis Wolfborn, three thunder wolves, and five of the new wolves are now underway. One of the changes I made from the previous fur recipe was to airbrush fenris grey along the belly,just after the bane blade color. Next, I plan to use a 25% wash 75% water ratio for the agrax earthdirtshadeButReallyIsMud color. I can easily see myself producing an all wolf army for my Space Wolves force. I know it would be terrible from a game perspective, but eh, paint what you want to right.
(a little saturday stream of consciousness should be expected only one coffee in)

Just for kicks I decided to use the new GW painting guide to paint one of the Tallarn models I have been slowly amassing. Instead of going Tallarn traditional, I decided to follow the LoTR Haradim tutorial. I thought it would be just an amusing mash up, but then I noticed my 10 mumaks, and how nice the would look painted like the Haradim elephants and well.....maybe my Tallarn might be LoTR Themed. Do mashups work?

So what are your plans this Saturday? How about painting up a mashup?

Wolves

Long before the new running wolves came out for the Space Wolves, I purchased a bunch of what were labeled wolves on the GW site. It turns out they are mounts for goblins I think, and have piggish features. However odd the sculpts were, they are excellent test models for Thunderwolf cavalry which is built and ready to be be painted. Having never painted dogs/wolves before, I did a little research and found a video for painting wolves up on buypainted. I think the link was youtube, but whatever the case, you are pointed in the right direction. These wolves took very little work with the help of the airbrush. The thing to note is that while the colors are a little off due to morning photography, the wolves looked much better prior to adding washes to them. I think 50% is the new 100%, and 25% is the new 50%. The washes glazed the model rather than stay in the recesses, which would be nice if I were worried about pooling, but alas, I am not.

Grey Wolf Recipe

• Base color: Eshin Grey
• Top color: Abbadon Black
• Belly color: Fenrisian Grey
• Nuln Oil 50% strength wash over full model

Tan Wolf Recipe

• Base color: XV88
• Top color: Rhinox
• Belly color: Baneblade 
• Agrax Earthshade 50% strength wash over full model
• Light dusting on the feet and nose of ushabi bone

Brown Wolf Recipe

• Tan Wolf Recipe
• Base color: XV88
• Top color: Rhinox
• Belly color: Baneblade 
• Agrax Earthshade 50% strength wash over full model
• Light dusting on the feet and nose of ushabi boneAgrax Earthshade 100% strength wash over full model

I am out of test models now, so short of dunking these in simple green, I may just start on the big daddies themselves. That is of course unless anyone knows of other tutorials I should watch, or other material I should read before I paint these wolves up.

Space Wolves Painted Using New GW Paints

My painting experiments continue this Adepticon weekend. I had planned to get some games in at the Springfield GW store, but a series of utterly uninteresting house chores held me back. On the other hand, I decided to use my available hobby time experimenting with the new GW paints, and the GW how to paint book/dvd.

As always, my first experiment was to grab an old mini and see how well the new colors would map to my existing BA force. I've got plenty of blood red stockpiles, so I am not particularly worried about finishing the force, or having paint available for touch ups. The mini chosen was one of the old 'Armor of the Imperium' minis, and is slightly out of scale compared to newer GW sculpts. I think the red turned our fairly well, but despite claims to the contrary, watering down the layer paints is still necessary.  This mini was painted primarily by brush, so it does not represent how I paint these days.

My second experiment was to use the GW paint book as a guide for colors, but my airbrush as the the delivery mechanism. I've had a whole Space Wolf army in storage for some time, so I decided to break out some new minis to see what I could accomplish if I applied myself a little bit more. One of the nagging things worrying me was whether I was letting lack of effort affect my opinion of the new paints. Despite the airbrush, I tried to use the paints pretty much as is. The real hang up for me in painting these is figuring out how to use the new washes. As you can see on the Space Wolves, I had a really hard time keeping the washes where I put them, and rather than smoothly shade, they were essentially a really thin paint.

Overall I am pretty happy with the Wolves. I don't know SW heraldry at all, so hopefully these guys are painted appropriately for sergeants of tac squads.

I've been enjoying Ron's photos of his work area, so I thought I would share mine. (It is a total disaster right now!)

LR Proteus Dusted, Paint Chipped, And Powdered

Round one of weathering is done. The tracks are not glued on yet, but I plan to do so soon. The tank really feels like it belongs with the old school rhinos driving along side it. I am really pleased with how this tank has been coming along. There are a lot of details and changes to the way I paint that I think I will be able to incorporate into the rest of the force. This guy and the CAR will definitely be part of my armies on parade.