Heresy Era Imperial Fists - That New Car Smell...

Arrived home this afternoon to find the second Box o' Joy from FW awaiting me - always a pleasant surprise when it arrives! Wave one was almost a hundred models while Wave Two consists of, well, six.

But it's a BIG six! A pair of Contemptors with power fists and Kheres assault cannons, a pair of Sicaran Venators (as a pair of Raven Guard Venators straight up took apart my Thousand Sons tanks at the LVO), and last but not least a pair of armoured Proteus land raiders which will tote around the two breacher squads. ...And some Imperial Fist decorative bits to spruce up the tanks a bit, of course!

Had to break out the big bucket to get the two Proteusses into the wash! For big tanks like these I like to do at least two 24 hour soak and scrub passes. There is absolutely nothing more frustrating than sections of paint peeling away on big centerpiece models like this due to insufficient cleaning! Not that that's happened to me more than a dozen times up to and including just a few months ago. Argh.

Speaking of that new car smell, the assault squad is at what I think of as the "off the showroom floor" stage. At this point they'll get a sealant coat before any waterslide transfers and weathering is applied, but as we're in the grip of a typical Colorado springtime (it was 80 two days ago and is supposed to snow on Friday), I need to choose my moment to do so quite carefully!

I agreed with the multiple suggestions that the sandstone bases were a little too light, and as such gave all those areas a bit of a wash - still a little on the shiny not-quite-dry side here. I went in and fixed up the eyes that I'd missed earlier, a quick shade and little white specular dot for each. All those nice wide open yellow spaces are begging for some battle damage - quite looking forward to that!

...And not just to help cover up areas where I got sloppy! Well, a moderate amount of covering up of areas where I got sloppy. :)

I'm considering adding some red diagonal slash decoration to the chainswords, one or two diagonal bands out toward the tip of the weapon housing (as opposed to full-bore hazard stripes) - I think the models could stand to have a little red spot color on 'em as they're feeling a touch monochomatic to me at the moment. Definitely up for suggestions!