Heresy Era Mechanicum - Ursarax painted

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate it, and hopefully a decent Thursday for everyone else! As I had the better part of the day off today I decided to jump in and paint the Ursarax, and snapped a few pics on the way through the process.

We had an unseasonably warm day a little while back and they got the base black primer, followed by a heavy drybrush of boltgun metal and a black wash.

Next up all the red panels got a Dark Flesh basecoat. I tried to be quite careful at this stage, don't want to slop red onto the metal endoskeleton where possible.

Next they got a heavy hit of Red Gore, then a blood red highlight focusing on the upper-facing surfaces. Once that was dry they got a Carroburg Crimson wash to tone it down and tie in the layers.

Next up was blocking in the power cables, the gold on the jump packs, and the base orange for the Volkite weapons.

Then more washes and highlights to darken down the blue and gold, lighten up the Volkites, and clean up the faceplates on the heads. They're starting to look like something now!

The penultimate stage sees the cog-tooth pattern applied to the shoulders, the roman numerals onto the right fists (their right shoulders where the numbers would normally go being obscured by the weapons), and the bases getting painted which always goes a long way to making the models snap into focus, as it were. If the weather holds tomorrow, I'm hoping to get the static grass on these as well as the Adsecularis from earlier and get 'em sealed!

Requiescat in pace - PalpaDave 1969-2014

Some sad news I'm afraid - Last week my best friend and closest gaming buddy David lost a lengthy battle with the Big C. We'd known each other for over twenty years and met on the very first day he set foot in Boulder back in '93, in a local gaming shop where we happened to strike up a conversation about 40k - 2nd edition had literally just released and we were both drooling over the contents of the box (a huge change from the Rogue Trader system we were both previously familiar with). Was the first day in a long friendship and hundreds if not thousands of great gaming memories - Dave was the one who originally taught me how to paint, and was always a source of inspiration, ideas, feedback and laughter over the years.

Our fantastic group of gaming friends played countless games of D&D and Star Wars under Dave's peerless game mastering over the years (where his moniker Emperor PalpaDave came from), and in countless more 40k:RPG games that I'd run with him as a player. Dave and I weathered six editions of 40k together and dove in to the heresy with both feet, culminating in a trip across the pond to visit Warhammer World and play in what ended up being one of the last Tempus Fugitives events. As time went on Real Life took up more of everyone's free time but Dave and I always managed to get in a couple games of 40k in a year, our annual July 4th game was a source of much revelry and months of smack talking both before and afterwards. We've attended GenCon every year for the last decade, meeting up with some of our old gaming buddies who have scattered across the globe. Gonna be a bittersweet trip to indy this coming year, but we're going to have a good time lifting a pint in his honour.

We'll roll some dice and push some lead on the other side, buddy. You're going to be missed.

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Ursarax build complete!

Got in a little hobby time last night and finished up the Ursarax build!

Not a lot of change from the front, other than the bases getting textured and a bit more trimming and scraping here and there on the fists.

Utilized some guitar wire to make some power cables on the back - the power fist bits came with a number of plastic power cables, but after some attempted test fitting I knew I didn't want to try and cut and bend all that plastic to fit.

We're scheduled to have an uncharacteristically warm day today so I'm hoping I can get these guys primered this afternoon!

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Ursarax build continues...

Two packages showed up in the mail recently, the puppetswar shredder arms that I'd intended to use to represent the Ursarax lightning claws, and the centurion power fists that I'd ordered when I got tired of waiting for the puppetswar order to actually ship. Turns out they're both similar in scale, but are stylistically different enough that they wouldn't really mix and match well, so it was decision time.

The Puppetswar arms are nice, but the fists are just a better choice once everything is taken into consideration. While the lightning claws are the perfectly serviceable and cheaper option points-wise, the power fist upgrade boosts the unit's strength up to 10 and reduces the AP down to 2 making them excellent tank-hunters as well as infantry squashers, but they do strike last (granted their base Initiative of 2 means it's not really a huge downgrade). On the upside, the Ursarax' 3 wounds and T5 mean they'll be able to weather a fair bit of punishment before bringing the pain - a 27-wound unit of jump infantry potentially throwing 36 S10 AP2 hits around is nothing to sneeze at!

Sadly winter seems to be upon us so getting them based and primered is going to take a little while. Still, it's Colorado so it'll be warm and sunny soon enough! Again, all credit for the conversion idea lies with Eye of Error's fevered brain - though I'll admit cursing his name while scraping off all the aquilas and marine heraldry from the Centurion fists! Hah!

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Shots from the forge

Spent a few more hours over the last couple mornings painting, and finished up the Tech Thralls (more or less).

30 menials sorted out - I'd planned 40, but managed to lose two heads in the build process. Soooooo, 30 it is. Doh!

 

They got some white cog-tooth patterns around the hems and collars of the stormcoats, and the various power cables given a lick of blue. Next up is getting the static grass in place, followed by giving them a spray matte seal and then a brush-on gloss on the helmet domes.

I spent a little time getting the Ursarax started - the basic Thallax bodies were given a shoulder-mounted volkite, and they'll be getting power fists from the Centurion kit (idea shamelessly stolen from a loving homage to Eye of Error's fantastic builds).

Pulled everything off the shelves to see how it's all coming together and snapped a quick family photo as well. So far so good!

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Archmagos Prime build in progress

More early morning insomnia has troubled me over the last few days, but as I'd been doing a fair bit of painting I thought I'd reward myself with a little build time instead. I'd received a package o' joy from Forge World earlier in the week and after getting things soaked and scrubbed I started putting together the Archmagos:

In the rules, the Archmagos may have up to four Cyber-Occularis which may go haring off across the table and provide benefits/hindrances to units they're close to, so rather than have them attached to the Abeyant (and undoubtedly snap off) I instead based them separately. I also magnetized the weapon options that attach to the front (though I neglected to get the actual weapons in the picture).

I found his base doesn't fit quite right into the Abeyant, so I'll need to do a little sanding to get a good fit. I'm planning on busting out the Tentacle Maker and adding a few more trailing cables and grippy mechadendrites, and really make it tentacular. The command dias is chock full of cool little details, really looking forward to painting it!

The Archmagos model itself is rather cool, though I took some liberties with the build. Wasn't a huge fan of the mechadendrite dreadlocks so I left them off, and in the build process I managed to accidentally flick his lower left hand off somewhere into the hobby room never to be seen again. So, he got a clamp hand instead. Doh!

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Adsecularis painting in progress

Over the last few mornings I've not been sleeping well so I've found myself killing time before heading out for work. So, I fired up the batch painting machine and got cracking on the Tech Thralls for the Mechanicum army I have planned for the Las Vegas Open coming up in February.

Started off with the usual red recipe of Vallejo's Dark Flesh, followed by a medium and light drybrush of Gory Red and Blood Red, respectively. Finally a wash of Carroburg Crimson was applied to help blend them together and deepen the shade.

Next up I laid on the Burnished Gold followed by a Reikland Fleshshade wash. At this point they're starting to come together pretty nicely, getting the metals in place on the arms, weapons and backpacks should be pretty straightforward, then they'll get a white cogtooth pattern on the hem of their coats and around their necks. So far, so good!

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Magos Dominus Hecaton rebuild

While waiting for the bits to arrive to make the Ursarax, my eye fell upon an old model that I thought I'd try to breathe a little life into. As I'm not a huge fan of the FW Magos Dominus model I wanted to come up with something a little different - in the old Tempus Fugitives list there was a unit called the "Telepathica Emancipator" which was essentially a captured psyker stuffed into a nutrient tank and forced to serve the mechanicum. As the cyber-theurgy rules are a bit psyker-esque I thought the model could once again find use on the table as a Magos Dominus instead - albeit with a bit of a re-build:

I wanted to keep him cheap yet as survivable as possible, so an Abeyant and Machinator Array are pretty much required while a cyber-familiar bolsters the save to a 3+/3++. Other than that I figured I'd lay off the extra add-ons so if (when) he does get popped due to his non-independent-character status, it's not a massive point sink. In other news, I'm apparently not going to be getting much primering done any time soon - here's a timelapse picture I found looking out over CU Boulder on Monday:

When I left for work at 530am, it was 67F, by the time I stopped home for lunch, it was 17F. As of the time of this post, it is currently 1 goddam degree outside (or for our friends across the pond, negative 17 bloody degrees). ...and It'll be blue skies an in the 50's on Friday. Gotta love the weather in Colorado!

Space Hulk Terminators Painted

The other half of the project I'd been working on recently is now complete! As I'd mentioned in the earlier post, I'd been asked to finish off a set of Space Hulk minis for my buddy Dave who has been having some medically challenging times of late. I was happy to do what I could to help him out, and working on these models was a refreshing change of pace from the relentless onslaught of Heresy models of late.

These mark the first and only Blood Angels marines I've ever painted. Dave had gotten the base reds in place and had started blocking in the details when he fell ill, so so for the most part it was just a matter of finishing off all the myriad details, weapons and bases. Was interesting to note how our painting techniques differ, but I think the melange of the two worked out pretty well.

  

Couple closer-up shots of the models. Much like the Genestealers, they're chock full of personality, but the press-fit nature of the models means there are some odd blocks of undetailed  plastic here and there that I tried to downplay as much as possible. Overall I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

Of course, I couldn't overlook the most important part of the set, the door holders. Heh. It occurs to me that I neglegted to take pictures of the objective marker minis - the chalice, C.A.T. and dead captain in the throne. Unfortunately the minis are all packed and the box is winging its way to Illinois. Rats!

Now back to our regularly scheduled doses of Heresy madness - Next up on the painting table are 30 Tech-thralls for my burgeoning Mechanicus force. Batch painting ahoy!