I'm not 'Dreading' this one...

Thats the last of the terrible, terrible dreadnought puns I swear.  So this is one of my leftover dreadnoughts from a Black Reach set that I decided to add some of my newly aquired Dark Angels icon to.  (poor sentence structure)  I filed off the original sarcophagus and added the DA lid.  Filed down the stormbolter and added a flamer.  Sprinkled some icons...and its getting ready for the painting stage!  I've always loved dreadnoughts...it will probably suck, but I think it would look really cool next to the Deathwing dreadnought I finished last week!

Hobby Progress

Had a bunch of free time during the holiday weekend...so got a bunch of stuff done hobby-wise!  Got a bunch of DA & RW icons in a bitz order, so I was looking forward to putting them to use. 

Chopped the fronts off of a bunch of my old bikers...they were already pretty much painted black and finished for my Black Consuls, so it wont be terrible to convert them to Ravenwing!  As an added bonus, I found an old Land speeder I painted in highschool in 96...under a foam insert in an old gun case I used to keep my marines in.  I had to take a pic, because I was actually a really nice job!  I think for the longest time I got worse as a painter before I got better  :)

Felt sad to strip the paint

Mind Worm

Heres a bit more Ezekiel progress.  Shaded the green in the shoulder pads, put some script on purity seals, almost finished up gems on the sword, more work on banner pole (after the picture I added a cluster of purity seals to cover the finecast gap near the bottom), got the base almost finished, picture is not great, but got a lot done on the face as well...lots of just little things left to pull it all together.

Ezekiel Progress

Not sure if this miniature has enough 'glitz' to draw any attention as far as the painting competition goes...but making a lot of progress anyway.  Worked on the robes and power armor for a few hours last night and they're starting to look pretty clean & crisp.  Theres a bit of modeling work that I need to do on the banner...the finecast mold was pretty terrible and it has several cavities where the paper-thin areas tore out.  If its not salvageable I will ditch it.

Painting Contest

As a little bit of fun and motivation I decided to pledge painting Ezekiel, Grand Master of Librarians for a Painting Contest in The Warmaster's forums.  I've had Ezekiel for about 20 years now unpainted and in just a box of old minis.  I bought him when I was probably 13 or 14 because I thought he looked awesome and I didnt really have a concept of space marine "chapters."  Since I played Ultramarines, (you can see that at some point I scraped off the DA symbol from his book) hes stood in for Tigerius on many occasions but now since I'm all-in on Dark Angels, the figure gets the treatment he deserves!  

No illusions of grandeur, but I want to do a really nice job on it...while I'd love to give him some major weathering and battle-damage I just dont think hed fit in to the rest of the army, so I'm planning to make it nice a clean from the start.  I'm converting the banner pole from the Terminator Librarian to give Ezekiel the drama he deserves! HERE is the link to my contest post if you're interested in following!

Note the scraped off book front :(

Just after blocking in some basecoats.

Tactical Marines - More Work

Last week had a nice afternoon of painting and enjoying a couple local brews!  I think next time I need to pay more attention to HOW I'm putting the new tactical squads together...a couple bolter arms went in weird.  Oh well, my primer got all speckled and fuzzy on all the boltguns so it was a slight letdown anyway.  The marines themselves are shaping up pretty good!

Turrets Syndrome

Not the most exciting of posts, sure...I'll buy that.  Progress is progress so I figured I'd post it up here.  Its a couple nearly finished turrets for two Razorback vehicles I'm finally getting around to painting.  I didn't go through the work of magnetizing the weapons or anything.  It usually seems to work fine to model the things with the more expensive weapons and the opponent is less likely to to have any issues if you're 'downgrading.'  ex: "These lascannons are actually just Heavy Bolters for this game"... as opposed to "These HBs are really LCs"  Well, thats my justification for being lazy anyway! haha

More Terminator painting

Getting closer to finishing off this group of Deathwing.  Its going a bit slower now that Im working on 3 of them at the same time.  The eye lenses and chest symbols are the only parts that are completely finished.  Otherwise these are just after the point of inking and cleanup.  Up next is lots of highlight buildup and edging.  I think Im going to pickup a box of Deathwing knights to use for the Sgt. torsos.  I don't really like the one from Dark Vengeance, so I've re-purposed the arms to change up a bit of their poses.  (the one on the right is the assault cannon guy with the Sgt arm)

Hobby Update

Been doing some gluing lately!  Made a bit more progress on my Deathwing squad, but wanted to bust out the tools a bit and do some building.  Did some binge-watching of Dexter with my wife and organized my marine bits.  One container is for the newer marine kits and another has some older (2008 and before) kits in it.  Theres probably 30-40 full marines in this newer container....organized by weapon type, shoulderpad, legs, heads etc

Using the GW Dark Angels shoulderpads I put together a new tactical squad using all unique parts!  (gun carrying arms might be the same though)  Each one has a different head, chest plate, legs, and backpack.  I think its going to make painting the squad less tedious for sure.  I've since Army Painter'd the squad "Angels Green" and separately finished their bolters.  Oh, and I love Loctite Ultragel.

Last night progress

Looking at about 75% done on the second Deathwing Terminator!  Still a bit of bone color clean-up here & there, but next step with be high-lighting all over the place.  I've got a 1500pt list I'm working on to serve as a painting 'check-list' or to-do sheet...This is the group I am currently working on:

D- Deathwing Terminator Squad “Brother-Dekel”   (245)

• 5 Deathwing - 1 Assault Cannon, 1 Thunderhammer & Storm shield

Do you EVEN chainfist Bro?

Starting Deathwing

First time painting these guys...I actually cant remember the last time I was so excited to paint a squad of marines!  I've always loved Terminators...from the first time playing on the kitchen floor with my friends, Ive always had to have Tactical Dreadnought Armor everywhere.  (Of course it didnt hurt that back then it was a 3+ ...on 2d6!....strength modifiers lowered it etc, but it was awesome).
I've always loved how the Deathwing looked, but early on I saw white dwarf 98 and Ultramarines became the coolest thing ever to me!

So there was no way I could stray from the codex and paint my 1st company white.  Well, now that Im a 40K hipster and can't bring myself to play UM anymore (haha...I liked them before they were cool ;) and believe it or not, they didnt used to be the gw marine posterboys...Crimson Fists and Blood Angels were both the first chapters I remember on the rulebook covers) of course now I get to paint the cool bone-white Terminators.
Wow, that was a long-winded way of saying, heres the first WIP shot.  (I realized I forgot to drill one of the storm bolter barrels...whoops, Ill fix that)

Veteran Sergeant

Serious work-in-progress, but I figured I'd post him at this stage (hes sloppy).  I sawed off the Dark Vengeance sergeants arm and slapped it on this old metal DA Veteran.  Back in the 90s I was a teenager and I didnt really get the concept of different marine chapters...I bought a bunch of them because I thought the robes were really cool.  So anyway, I still have about 10 of them completely bare metal.  Now that I'm actually painting Dark Angels I can use them perfectly!

I couldnt decide on the left arm...I usually just model sergeants with powerfists (its usually easier to say 'no, hes just got a close combat weapon'...rather than 'that sword is actually a powerfist').  That said, I liked the sword in the air pose...it seemed more knightly.

Greywing.

I am hiding all of these for a while...as they are too intimidating to look at.  Its a bit daunting to see all that work to do.  Getting close to finishing up 1st tactical squad...must stay focused! 

An empty mind is like unto a freshly turned sod; if not sown with the seeds of love, duty and honour, the insidious weeds of heresy will take root.

Bases

Again, these pics are just awful...but here are the first round of bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures.  They have kind of a muddy/bloody pool color in the recesses and I filled the cavities with Woodland Scenics 'Realistic Water' so although it doesnt show in these pictures, theres kind of a cool/clear depth to the bases.  I am a bit concerned that its going to be maybe TOO grim-dark spread out over all the marines...but I suppose we'll see.

-Basecoated in Army Painter 'Skeleton Bone'
-Washed with 'Strong Tone' Amry Painter
-Dry Brushed with GW bleached bone
-Highlighted with Ivory/Bleached bone
-Cavities colored with a mix of red/black washes

Some work on the Grand Master

For some reason I really haven't been feeling this model.  I can't figure out the reason but its just been a chore getting to this point.  Its very much a work-in-progress, so maybe It'll grow on me.  Here it is with some areas washed & highlighted...some stuff just base-coated...like I said, my heart just wasnt in it yesterday.

More tactical marines

Just a simple pic of the next 4 marines base-coated and ready for the next step!

More Grandmaster/Counts-as Azrael

Sat down last night and cleaned a bunch more Tactical marines, so the desk wasn't really setup for painting.  I decided to get some more done with my scratch built leader (that I posted a bit earlier about).  Here he is so far...I decided to use an old 2e power sword (mag locked) on his side.  I just got a bit tired of the usual captain pose/angled sword to the air. 

Instead I dug through my bits to find the pointing powerfist...I felt like it gives a bit more of an authoritarian pose...more expressive in my opinion.  Hes armed with a decorative combi-melta and more purity seals than any model Ive ever done!

Tomorrow, I've got packages from Hoard o bits, Secret Weapon Miniatures, and GW direct coming in...it will be glorious.  I'll be able to finish this model off with a Dark Angels chapter shoulderpad and maybe start painting him soon! 

Marines!

Heres progress from last night.  Once again, my crummy phone camera has washed a great deal of the detail, but I think they are more than tabletop-ready.  I need to finish up the backpacks and get the company badges on their knees.  I might hit the eyes with another wash or something...they are just 'ok' to me (I have done better at any rate ).  I think alot has t do with the batch of marines I got in my Dark Vengence box...they are very soft in lots of places.

WIP Grandmaster or Azrael 'counts as'

Got inspired to run through some sprues for a bit of a kitbash.  This will be my Azrael figure if I ever decide to use him.  It always bugged me that his miniature wasn't wearing the Lion Helm...I know its just the designers aesthetic, but anyway I wanted helm on!

Parts are pretty easy to identify:  Have assault marine legs and grenade packs, company champion front torso, captain back with cape & (not pictured) aquilla command shoulderpad, dark vengeance master head with vet sergeant backpack...DA symbol came from command banner sprue I believe. Then I have a combi plasma with lots of purity seals from the tactical box.  Finally I have a couple packs of Dark Angel shouldpads coming from GW.  Still can't decide what sword arm to outfit him with.  The normal captain pose is pretty boring.

Librarian WIP

I've become a bit side-tracked and picked up a nasty Dark Angels bug,  (The Unforgiven episode from the Independent Characters was so cool).  I honestly didn't know anything about their fluff, and I've been collecting/painting since the end of Rogue Trader...weird.  Anyway, I thought they sounded awesome so I picked up 4 Deathwing squads...ordered some fancy new scenic bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures and picked up two Librarians in Terminator armor (I think it would look bad-ass for each one to be in command of their own squad).