Next cab off the rank: Angron

Hello everyone, welcome to my series of Primarch posts.

I've had a collection of Primarchs building up in the background for quite a while, but they've been on the back burner as I finished units for gaming as a priority and uni got in the way.

Since I finished Horus however I've been making steady progress on the backlog and Angron is the second Primarch to be finished.


The model is from my recollection the oldest primarch in circulation, and the sculpt and basing style certainly shows its age. There has been a steady increase in the size and complexity of the bases in the character series, not entirely for the better. I would prefer FW to offer a gaming choice that comes without the over the top display bases for a more reasonable price, but that may just be me.

To that end I've actually decided not to paint the display bases for the rest (most) of the primarchs, providing me with fodder for conversions and objectives, as well as saving alot of room in the display case as well.

I have also decided to paint the remaining primarchs to a good TT standard to get them ready for some gaming. There was talk of a Primarch death match series at some of the tournaments in Brisbane which I think would be really interesting.

As you can see from the photos, I have experimented with a darker background for the pics this time, oddly it seems to make the images of the models lighter, and I actually had to dim the lights so the images didn't look too washed out.

Which background do you prefer? What do you think of AngryRon, is he showing his age, or holding up well?

Cheers

Aaron

Horus the Warmaster

Hi everyone, back from the dead again.

So recently I have moved house and as any gamer or modeler who's goes through this ordeal knows it involves packing and unpacking that most sacred space, the hobby table.

This can be painful, there's a lot of stuff, some of it get broken and things get lost, and it can take a while to get setup again.

Once you do though, it's like a blank slate, none of those half finished projects sitting there staring at you accusingly, no bits of offcuts and chucks of sprue lying around. It can be invigorating to tackle something new.

So with the constant heckling of Rictus I managed to finish the first of my Primarch miniatures, and I started with the big cheese himself, Horus.

This is the first miniature I have painted in a long time that didn't require the use of an airbrush, every step was done using standard brushes, and man am I rusty, it took along time to get back into the swing of blending highlighting and not weathering.

The cloak was shaded with purple inks, to give it a depth, but not be so dark as to be all black, I found that when I tried to use straight black to shade the cloak lost a lot of its regal appearance.

I hope the pictures are a lot better, as I finally invested in a photo booth setup, I bought a Foldio 2, which is a really nice product, easy to use and set up, though not exactly cheap.

I hope to do some experimentation with photo backgrounds, and might reshoot some of my old minis that I've done to test them out.

I also have 4 more Primarchs to paint (and another I just ordered) so expect some more painting progress in the not too distant future.

Like everyone else involved in HH I have bought a couple of sets of Battle for Calth and will be using them to start my third legion force, so watch that for developments when I finally get them in my hands.

Thanks for sticking around and reading this wall of text if you have, and thanks for stopping by, I hope to increase the tempo and consistency of posts to the blog, but we've all heard me say that before.

Cheers

Sheep

More Sons of Horus Reinforcements

Just a quick one today, I've had 3 Terminators sitting in my miniatures case half painted for ages, probably going on 18 months!

Consequently they were incredibly quick to finish off, only taking me one day of intermittent painting.

These take my current termis to 8 + a Praetor, lucky i have a Spartan to take them up the guts in.

Hopefully I will have something else to put up soon, maybe some more infinity, but the response to those was a bit muted so I don't think I'll spend too many posts on them and stick to HH and 40k.

Either way, the next few week will be quiet as the Uni year ramps up to exams, and I move house, which will obviously involve the packing of the studio (desk) and downtime before its set up again I'll need to buy a new compressor for my Airbrush too, as the industrial one I have now is inappropriate for the new apartment.

Anyone have any recommendations for a quiet compressor you can use inside?

Hopefully when I return the quality of photos will improve dramatically, I bought a Foldio2 collapsible studio on a whim, and having seen some reviews I'm confident even I can't screw it up, just need to make/buy a back ground for it.

Cheers for stopping by.

Word Bearers Boss-man

Every army needs a general, and Word bearers armies apparently need 2 compulsory HQ's, so here's the first of mine, the "obviously a bad guy, I don't know how we fooled the Ultramarines at all" Diabolgist.

 Long time followers of the blog might recognize him as the WIP World Eaters Praetor from awhile ago, just modified somewhat.

Apart from some minor alterations, the majority of the model stayed the same, I replaced the purity seals with the more WB parchments, added some skulls to the jetpack, which were supposed to be from his victims at Istvaan.

Oh and added horns, stops him wearing a helmet, but really drives home the fact he is an evil bastard, and the source of all the daemons I plan on painting for this force.

 The book has a subtle hint as to what god the planned Daemons will be from.

The broken symbol he's standing on is a cast I made of an old Buldog buckle company key chain, I think it makes a nice broken symbol of Calth, and is symbolic of the betrayal of the WB's in that theatre.

Initially I had tried to paint the legion numerals of the Salamanders, Ravenguard, and Iron hands, on the skulls, but they were just too long and detailed to fit onto such a small space convincingly.

Leading from the front . . . gets you killed now days in 40k/30k.

This final photo has been included because I think the colour is slightly more representative of the actual tone of the armour.

Thanks for looking.

Word Bearers Legion Symbol

Hey guys, just a quick one on the legion symbol I have had to free hand on all the miniatures I've finished so far.

Initially I tried to do the above symbol, but found it too time consuming, especially for tactical marines, and assault marines that will just die in droves.

I did one on Barry the test model, just to try it out, abut couldn't fit the daemon face into such a small space convincingly (its really distressing to spent so long free handing something, only to add battle damage to it as well).

Originally found on From the warp, I make no claim to this awesomeness

Then I found the above Image on From the warp, a now sadly inactive blog, and it saved my bacon.

Much easier to paint, and according to the FW books, still canon and current to the campaign on Calth and beyond, all the bases covered I can carry this on to all the rest of the units, and save the more complicated symbols for tanks, dreadnoughts etc that warrant a bit extra attention.

Cheers for checking in.

Bearers of the Word, Muster

Welcome one and all to another post that starts off with an apology for failing at updating, sorry about that . . . 

Inspiration for my scheme

As usual though, after a long hiatus I have pics of finished minis to make up for it.

 Its been along time since I painted anything for the Horus Heresy that wasn't for my Sons, the last thing I painted was that test world eater, who coincidently has been repainted to make it into this squad, he was the test again, and just turned out well enough to not need another re-re-paint.

Quite happy with how the metallic red has come out, it is a Vallejo model air colour, "Signal Red", there are several layers of GW washes to bring it down to a more muted colour though.

The eyes on these are yellow, not green as in the inspiration picture, not for some paint theory reason, but because I don't actually own any green paints! Surprised the hell out of me actually.

The only things I can't get to work are the inscribed geometric symbols in their armour, I  have actually repainted armour panels that I just felt it wasn't working on, like the chest of the guy with pelvic parchments.

I'll have another couple of posts on these guys coming up, and have a few more at the base coat stage. Funnily enough, while base coating my airbrush carked it, so these are the first models I have painted, entirely with brush, in a very long time.

It is also actually a really hard scheme to photo graph well, so I apologise for the quality of the pictures, I really need to set up a proper light box one of these days.

Thanks for looking, and hopefully I'll have something else for you all shortly.

And now for something Infinitely different

See what I did there . .

The local games club has seen an explosion of interest in the game Infinity, with about half the guys there buying starters of one form or another, and the start of a small journeyman league. Since I'm trying to encourage the use of the club and the members coming in more, I decided to dig the Aleph starter I bought 4 years ago out for a lick of paint.

And then of course I ignored it and painted the coolest model first. So I present the TAG for Aleph, the Marut.

Small bit of yellow overspray on that left arm, bugger

I used alot of airbrushing to achieve the subtle purple blends across the body, the white on the high points didn't quite turn out as intense as I wanted it too, but I had to stop for fear of losing the gradients and not being able to highlight it with pure white.

The high heels are so Sci-fi

The shield didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to either, the yellow over sprayed and coated the whole surface and I lost the gradient, so I guess Its made of the same material as the sword now . . or something.

The base is the same base colour as my Sons of Horus, but as it was drying I mixed in some white, yellow, grey and red, giving a sort of marbled finish. This was kind of lost under the application of some powders for texture and interest. The colour reminds me of a hospital, or maybe I've just watched too much Scrubs.

Finally the obligatory scale shot, as you can see for something that represents a tank in game, the Marut is pretty spindly. The actual infantry are tiny compared to 40k models, and even small compared to Boltaction, assembling them was an exercise in patience when it came to pinning.

After painting this model, and the base coats on the infantry I can safely say I need a new airbrush, any recommendations? Model, manufacturer and/or online store to buy them from would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for looking, and let me know what you think.

Tyranid reinforcements and 85k views!!

4 posts in a month! what is this sorcery! Just a quick one today though.

Following on from the kill team post, the original idea was a phalanx of Zoanthropes, 4 at 200 points would be a pain, but during play testing they sucked, so the DE rolled in from the bench.

I have another couple of units waiting in the wings for paint, namely 2 tyranocytes and a toxicrene that I'm undecided on if I'll turn into a tyranid knight . . .

Also, I'm so excited for Ad mech, and resisting the urge to order a metric shit ton of new models, though I'll be the hipster douche sitting at the bar at tournaments "I did Ad mech before they were cool". . .

Then there's those damn assassin models . . .sah sexy.

Thankyou all for the support and for continually stopping by, I'm sure about 70,000 views are from bots but even so I'm amazed so many of you are following my work. Its a great feeling knowing people care enough about what you do as a hobby to stop by and look, and comment.

Heres to another 85,000. . .

Razors edge

So that didn't take long now did it . . .

This is my favourite shot of the razorwing

There's something about painting one model and just having the scheme "click", it reaffirms your joy of the hobby. This is the first model I have painted for ALONG time that hasn't had a tournament or list derived goal as the end state.It makes me think these INQ28 guys are onto something, might have to try my hand at a few conversions just because.

The statues on the base are a bit cliched for DE, but I love them

Its not shown very well in the photos (unless you zoom right in) but some of the spray went a bit speckly, I can only assume this is due to too much pressure, paint that was too thick, or the needle of my airbrush is bent, or a combination of all the above.

But as far as the Table top goal of the army is concerned I'm super happy with how the scheme has translated to the model that inspired me to pick up DE in the first place.

As with the venom, the glass on the canopy is a place holder until I can get some masking fluid and come up with a canopy scheme that compliments the tones of the body. I'm undecided on engine OSL as well.

I don't know why. but spraying the stand for the base makes the model look less like a toy to me.

There's another post in the chamber on tyranids coming up, but I doubt I'll get to paint anything in the next month or 2 as uni ramps up for exams, but procrastination may get the better of me.

Thanks for looking, let me know what you think.

New WIP

So it didn't take long for the DE bug to bite.

One of the most impressive models at the time of release, and of the DE, and GW range at the time was the Razorwing. It, and the scourges pretty much sold me on the entire miniatures range.

I got a bit carried away today when I was digging through some boxes and found an old Razorwing, it was dusty and coated in paint already, but 20 mins of TLC and I got it to the point I could prime and base coat it again.

Some of the surfaces are a bit rough, but I still love where this is going. the second picture is more representative of the colour too.

Stay tuned for more soon.

Thanks for looking.

Not so Dark Eldar

Hello all, back from another patented long break between posts, but I come bearing pics!

Dark Eldar Killteam (200 points)

Recently its been apparent that there is a trend for new codex's to increase the amount of miniatures you need to paint for a complete army, leading to alot of burn out among the player base locally. we all still love GW models, and fluff and play the game regularly, but its just so hard to finish a new army!

More "after the jump"..... what a stupid turn of phrase.

Sons of Horus Reinforcements

G'day everyone, sorry for the lack of updates, but I am updating now, so get off my back Matt.

As seems to be my MO, a tournament provided the impetus to get the latest batch of models completed for this army.

I required 1850 points (40k) to play, and only had 1000 points painted at the time, and being generous, and organised as I am, I only gave myself 21 days to paint the remaining points. . . .

But I did it!

So presented here are the finished pics, because in the made rush I didn't take any WIP pics worth posting (also tried a new background/new way of photgrapghing the minis, I'm not sold on it though, I think the sun was causing too many shadows)

First up we have a repaint of the drop pods from my Khorne angels force. I didn't even re prime them, just sprayed them in SoH green mix and went from there.

These were used by one of my Dreadnoughts and the veterans squad.

Speaking of veterans

I used the breacher marines to represent DA veterans with combat shields, not the most cost effective choice, but they were fun, and never failed to blow up something big. If I were to paint them again, I would cut the 6mm tape I used to the hazard stripes in half, they just look slightly too big for infantry.

Next we have the second completed tactical squad, the lascannon is singly overpriced and ineffective in my hands, I think it took 2 hull points off the entire tournament.

Finally, one of my favourite tanks in all of 40k, and a staple of every SM list I have ever run.

Vindicator!

S10 pie plates just scare the pants off of the enemy, and I'm not scared to call in danger close fire missions either.

The list for anyone who was interested was:

HQ:

Azreal *(Ravenwing and Deathwing as troops)

= 215

ELITES:

Dreadnought – 100 -          Multimelta -0 -          Powerfist - 0 -          Venerable  - 15 Drop pod – 35 = 150 Dreadnought – 100 -          2x Autocannons - 20 -          Venerable  - 15 = 135

Veterans x7 – 126 -          Combat shields x7 -35 -          Meltagun – 10 -          Combi-melta x3 – 30 -          Power weapon – 15 Drop pod – 35 = 246

TROOPS:

*Deathwing terminators x5 – 220 -          Chainfist – 5 -          Assault cannon – 20 = 245	Dedicated transport – Landraider - 250 -          Deathwing upgrade – 30 -          Hunterkiller Missile – 10 -          Multimelta – 10 =300
Tactical Squad #1 x9 - 126 -          Vet Sgt – 5 -          Power sword – 15 -          Plasmagun – 15 -          Missile Launcher + Flakk – 25 Rhino – 35 -          Hunterkiller Missile – 10 =229	Tactical Squad #2 x10 – 140 -          Vet Sgt – 5 -          Power sword – 15 -          Plasmagun – 15 -          Lascannon – 25 = 195 “Strange, is it not, that so many I wish beside me stand against me, while at my back are only the flawed and damaged. I am a master of broken monsters."

HEAVY SUPPORT:                                                                                                         -Horus Lupercal

Vindicator – 125

-          Seige shield - 10

= 135

Thanks for looking, hope to have something more to post soon.