Showcase - Death Guard Legion Tactical Squad in Mk3 Armour

Hi All,

Ok so those who follow the blog will know I have been really toying with Heresy Death Guard for quite a long time.  Something along the lines of two years.  In that time since I started the project has changed significantly.  It started off as a 40k/30k army, the paint scheme was originally by hand and now the scheme involves a lot of airbrushing.  So yes its changed.

As part of the ever changing process and to come to a final decision I have now modified the bases as well.  I have been using the brown design for so long and on 4 other armies so I needed a change.  With this in mind the first thing I did was experiment a lot as illustrated by the pictures below:

These were all deemed failure in the end although I quite liked the high contrast red finish.  In the end I plumped for the base design you will see showcased on my first legion tactical squad below.

This tactical squad completes my first Hobby Season completion.   I am so happy with the finish and base contrast and hope this is the end of changing my mind and means I can push forward on getting units finished up.

So first project is complete:

As always comments are welcome.  If the interest is there I will be happy to describe my process for painting these dudes up.

Cheers

DOC

Trying something new...

Hey guys and girls

Something a little new for you all this time, The sons of Magnus the Red :)

Had a request from a client to attack a small force of Thousand Sons marines for 30k and the FW colour scheme was mentioned so I decided to have a crack at it and see how it went. 

I did a little digging online and found (from the Dakka Website if memory serves?) that somebody had emailed Forgeworld and asked them how they achieve the shiny red of their Thousand Sons and they provided the recipe! 

It's probably worth pointing out at this point that the bulk of the red was done with an airbrush although I see no reason the scheme couldn't be replicated with a standard brush.

Firstly the model was coated in Lead Beltcher base metallic.

Then only spraying from above, the model was highlighted with Runefang Silver to highlight.

Then the fun bit....

Using 4 good, thin coats, the model was airbrushed with Forgeworlds Angron Red Clear Paint. This took a while as it was important to let the model dry after each layer so ideally doing these in bulk would be prudent.

Once a good shade has been acquired, use Nuln Oil in the recesses to give a little depth to the colour.

Once that's dried, using a good sharp brush, edge highlight the red with Runefang Steel to really make those for edges snap.

Once the red was complete, I began to pick out the detailing in Brass Scorpion (Honestly one of my favourite paints, it just covers so well and works fantastically as a base for gold or silver builds). After the Brass I built up the golds using another 2 or 3 different GW shades until I was happy with the look.

Then it was simply a case of picking bits I fancied and finishing them before moving onto the next part. 

My style of painting has changed a little of late, I used to favour getting all the base colours done on a model before going back and bringing the detail out but more recently I've changed my approach to starting and finishing specific parts of a model before attacking the next. This works better on high level character models etc instead of batch painting line minis but allows me to keep interested as I play, both starting something and finishing it in a session is incredibly rewarding. 

Any way - that's about the jist of how I tackled the Traitor Librarian, I'll leave you with some pics of the finished mini. I haven't enjoyed painting a model as much as this in a long time :) 

Thanks for reading and if you've any questions please shout them up in the comments!

DB 

Showcase; Imperial Knight Errant, Winter Effects Weathering

Hi All

Bluddtoof here, finally I've got round to finishing off the weathering on my Freeblade Knight Errant. It's only taken me 2 years!
So I was really quite nervous about this little project; the knight is probably my best work to date, I was very concerned I'd mess up the finish with poorly done weathering, I'm not experienced at all with weathering.
I'd done quite a bit of research on different methods and materials over the last year or so, a lot of advice came from my code40k colleagues, a big shout out to the boys for the help!
I bought a winter effects kit a while back that has quite good instructions included, Scene- A-Rama is the brand, and I experimented a bit with the various materials with mixed results.
The "snow base" liquid makes an excellent base layer for applying snow in the form of flock or powder, the snow powder in the kit is made of crystals of varying sizes all mixed up, I used it in conjunction with GW snow flock and Bicarb, applied in different layers for the final finish. This came after a great deal of playing around. Some of it I then coated in the "Ice Effects" liquid, a thickish clear resin that sets real quick.
All of this worked ok and was pretty easy after I'd worked out the method.
The tricky bit was Icicles, I knew I wanted the knight to be crusted with icicles hanging from the shoulder guards and carapace to simulate it having stood sentry for ages in sub zero temperatures and now just awoken to the call to arms. The kit has instructions to use the ice resin to make icicles...... it doesn't work, I tried and tried and tried, the resin just spreads and makes an icicle shaped flat sheet.... no good for the application I wanted..... so.... Luko Dakka delivered the solution with a quick explanation of how he used melted flying stems.....some practice later..... and Icicles I'm really pleased with! Hurrah! A word of warning tho if you try the melting plastic method...open a window and wear a face mask, nasty fumes.
In case you've not tried it here's my method I used....
Over a tea candle, hold a flying stem at both ends with a pair of needle nosed pliers in each hand. Hold the stem about 10-20mm above the flame, too close and it will scorch and even ignite...that was an interesting minute or so! Too high and you'll be waiting a LONG time. Keep a close eye on the surface of the plastic, it will start to develop fine striations and very shortly it will sag visibly.. Immediately apply a little tension and REMOVE from the heat, keep the gentle tension applied and the stem should quickly stretch very thin, keep pulling gently and the plastic should keep stretching with the thick end bits slowly feeding into the thin middle bit, you'll feel the resistance increase gradually, keep applying gentle tension until it won't stretch any more. You should now be able to let go and you'll have a long piece of plastic with a really thin middle section flaring out at both ends to fat bits. Chop this in the middle and cut/shape the fat ends to create the bit that connects to the surface the icicle will hang from, 2 icicles from 1 bit. You can then go on to do the same with the chopped of ends too if they're big enough.
This took me a few attempts to get right, it's very much a matter of FEEL with each piece, if you pull too fast it'll snap and then curl up.....ruined! Pull too little it'll just sag, too long over the heat...sag, burn, mess! Thankfully clear plastic flyer stems are cheap and plentiful, you generally get extras with any skimmer model.
One thing I did find tho was that once you've melted a piece and let it set again it doesn't melt cleanly ever again, I'm sure a chemist could explain it!

Anyhoo, enough blather! Piccies....

As you can see I haven't applied a huge amout of snow on it, I didn't want to obscure the paint job too much but I wanted it to look like it had recently had snow fall which has been dislodged as it starts to move.
Hope you like it, I do, I'm very pleased with the finish and I'm looking forward to rest of my Knights and trying different winter effects methods on them.
As ever C&C welcome....

Bluddtoof

A New Hobby Season - Confession of a 40K Addict

Hi All,

For years I have followed Dave's from confession of the 40k addicts progress using his hobby season format.  It has seemed to be a nice motivational tool.  So when Dave a couple of weeks back put a shout to see if anyone would like to join him for the next season starting I thought yep I am in for this! Extra motivation tools cant be a bad thing right?  So what is a hobby season  guess you are asking?

Well its simple and the best thing in a hobbyist arsenal a list!  A list of projects you would like to complete in the next 12 months.  Dave has also kindly made some icons or stamps to go along with the hobby season.

Ok along with the stamp above Dave has made some cool completed stamps which I attend to use. They are split down into major and minor hobby list stamps.  First up is the major stamp followed by my list of major projects for the next 12 months.

 Major Projects 2016/17

Mortarion Primarch of the Death Guard
Spartan Assault Tank
Knight Cerastus Lancer
Cerebus Tank
New Desert Themed Board
Deadzone Board (not 40k thats ok right!)
Leman Russ Primarch of the Space Wolves
Imperial Navy Avenger Strike Fighter
Necron Teseract Ark
MDF Necromunda Terrain
Re paint baneblade

Ok so there are 3 major scenery projects on here which is typical of me!  I love scenery so not surprised by this.  I will be surprised if I finish all 3!  This is 11 major projects but its a list right (dare to dream!).

Minor Projects 2016/17 (this could go on for a while!)
2 X Chimeras
1 X Taurox
1 X Valkyrie
2 X 19th Dicer Psykers
1 X Colonel 19th Dicers
4 X Repaint of Leman Russ Tanks
5 X Enforcer Pathfinders
1 X Enforcer Strider
5 X Enforcer Peacekeepers
10 X Volkite Death Guard
2 X Rhinos Death Guard
3 X Medusa's Death Guard
30 X Tactical Legion Death Guard
10 X Assault Marines Death Guard
10 X Deathshrouds Death Guard
6 X Jetbikes Death Guard
3 X Drop Pods Space Wolves
3 X Thunderwolf Cav Space Wolves
1 X Iron Priest Space Wolves
20 X Fenrisian Wolves
1 X Wraithknight Eldar
6 X Fire Dragons Eldar

Ok, I am stopping for now as this will get ridiculous and achieve the opposite of motivation!  Alongside this motivational tool I will continue painting points which I update on the right hand side of the blog and my annual review around new year.  My basic target has always been to paint a minimum of 100 minis a year which I am on target for this year so far!

So how many projects do you reckon I will complete from the lists above? Let me know in the comments and also please share links of you hobby lists / motivational techniques?

Cheers

Doc out

Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought, Thunderbolts Space Marines. Build and WIP.

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with an update on my progress towards Dreadnought number 11 for my Space Marines; the Thunderbolts. That's right, 11! I may have now reached critical mass on dreadnoughts......or maybe not!
So anyhoo, this is my second contemptor, as I said in my previous post about my latest mortis pattern I'd originally planned on a mortis contemptor, however this was shelved with the build of the mkv. Last month I visited GW HQ with some of the code boys for the FW open day and whilst browsing the store cabinets I saw the iron warriors contemptor and immediately thought "that'd look cool as a thunderbolt". Knowing I had a spare contemptor Lascannon arm in the bitz box I had a quick think about weapon options and plumped for a heavy conversion beamer and cyclone launcher (I've got plenty of assault capable dreads so another fire support dread made sense and the HCB is a nice gun.
I think this load out will make him a threat to pretty much anything non flyer and with 2 mortis dreads I've got flyers covered.
Currently...

I started the build process and straight away decided to go with sub-assemblies, which I don't usually do with my Imperial dreads. I also played with a range of basing and posing options, I considered a braced firing position but the ankles don't rotate enough to get a good look. So I decided on a stoically advancing pose with both feet posed in mid step to convey a sense of motion. I also wanted him to look like he was firing and thought through this too, I've had little success with previous attempts at OSL but I'm going to try it again on the conversion beamer and also I really wanted to try rocket exhaust modelling, (after seeing the fantastic displays at GW) so I did some research and with a little advice from the code boys I got some clump foliage and had a go.
Here's a few pics of the process of building...

The bits laid out awaiting clump foliage for the exhaust clouds.
All the load bearing joints got pinned using 1 mm uncoated jewellery wire, FW resin is very light so the pins are really only there because I don't trust "super" glue, but also to make the process of painting sub assemblies for later attachment easier.
As usual the hardest part with a contemptor is positioning of the legs and feet to get the desired pose, there are a lot of pieces to work with and super glue sets fast so you need to work quickly, again pins and dry runs are the order of the day.

Making the cyclone was really good fun and I'm pleased to have learnt a new technique, here's a series of shots...

The missiles are from the marine tactical sprues, well old ones anyway, I haven't bought a new kit so I don't know if you still get them. Carefully chop out the small, narrow shaft connecting the fins to the missile body and discard. Clean up the new surfaces and VERY carefully drill a hole in the back of the missile body and through the centre of the fin assembly.
Remove your selected missile tip(s) from the cyclone, clean and drill a hole. Fit your wire into the launcher, thread on the fin section and fit the missile body. Just the tiniest drop of thin super glue after assembly fixed the fins in place so that I could fiddle with the positioning at my leisure.
I think it's really important to use different lengths of wire to avoid an unnatural symmetry.
I spent ages wiggling and adjusting the wires to get them straight and in line!

Next the exhausts!

This was surprisingly easy, if you've not used this method then I would suggest you get some NOW! Dirt cheap, a fiver for a huge bag, and easy to use. The clumps break into bits easily but hold size and shape too allowing you to fix a clump in place and then carefully pinch little bits off to get the desired structure. Once it was built I gave the whole piece a good coat of spray matt varnish to hold it and stop the foliage from sucking up too much paint.

All in all very pleased, next post will be with more paint on it.
As ever C & C welcome.

Bluddtoof