Heresy Era Imperial Fists - Army complete!

Made the big push over the past week to finish up the Xiphon and Sicaran Venators, with the weather being nice enough to be able to get the transfers, weathering and sealant in place. First up the pair of Venators:

 

Since they already had big Fist symbols on the sponson covers, I kept things fairly simple with some vehicle identifier symbols, and the legion number on the front glacis. I also went back in and brightened up the lightning on the barrels so it stands out a little better. I loved building and painting these tanks, and they will definitely find their way into future armies!

 

The Xiphon also got a bit more decorative trim, carrying the gold/bronze theme from the other models. Still of two minds about this model - it was a joy to build and paint, but something about it just doesn't resonate with me in the way the new Lightning model does. It just feels a little too 'modern era' 40k to me design-wise. For future projects I'll definitely be going back to the Lightning.

 

The resin base company I'd ordered from had a neat flying stand that matched the rest of the army, but rather than the standard clear stand it utilizes a ruined column to hold the flyer aloft. Sort of a neat idea, I thought!

Once they were finished I can call the army complete! A good thing too with GenCon coming up and an inevitable paroxysm of spending at the Forge World booth means it's time to get 'em up on the auction block to help pay for it. First things first, pulling out all the models for a final family photo:

That's a lot of yellow! I think it's fair to say that I've gotten pretty weary of it, but am quite happy with the recipe - will definitely be using that method on yellows in the future. Snapped a few new closeups to detail what the army contains as well:

A bunch of characters of course, from left to right: Legion Champion, Sigismund, Forge Lord, Alexis Polux, Master of Signals, Cataphractii Praetor, Apothecary and another Praetor in Artificer armour.

The veteran squad and their transport rhino - the heavy bolters coupled with the Imperial Fists bolter discipline means they lay down a surprising amount of highly accurate fire!

Gotta have a whole mess of tactical marines, and I've set them up such that they can either be run as one big 20-man squad or as two 10-man squads with rhino transports.

I'm a huge fan of the Mk.IV assault marine models, so they were a must-add for the army. ...20 of 'em may have been overkill, but there's no denying they hit like an avalanche.

You can't have an Imperial Fists army without a mess of Terminators in my opinion. I'd intended to just do a single10-man squad, but I had enough leftover bodies to create a couple extra sergeants and heavy weapons to allow for running a pair of 5-6 man squads, or swap out the heavy weapons loadout to suit the mission at hand.

A pair of Contemptor dreadnoughts, the two Venators and the Xiphon round things out nicely, and give the army some much needed anti-air and anti-vehicle punch.

Like all of my armies, the models are all secured in Battlefoam trays for storage and transport, and have some room for future expansion. The army will be going up on eBay shortly - unfortunately due to the size and weight of the two boxes they'll be packed into, it would be ruinously expensive to ship them overseas (well over $250+) so I'm afraid it's going to be US only again. I wish that it wasn't the case, but to get any sort of delivery confirmation and tracking for overseas packages the prices are just ridiculous these days.

LINK TO AUCTION

Now to ponder the next project! I have more modern-era Adeptus Mechanicus to work on, but with  the recent arrival of the Horus Heresy Book V, it might just be time to turn my eyes back to the Prosperine Spireguard and look at updating that army a bit - tons of new options, and I have a decided urge to build and paint a Stormhammer...

Heresy Era Imperial Fists - Xiphon Interceptor painting continues

Just a quick one before the weekend - managed to get a bit more done on the Xiphon over the last couple days - finished up the yellow panels, worked up the reflections in the canopy glass, and laid in the basic metallics.

 

I think the added yellow panels on the wings definitely helped brighten it up overall - they're also perfect places to put a nice big black and white Imperial Fist symbol. Another couple sessions and it'll be ready to take to the skies!

Kickstarter watch - Fallout Hobbies Custom Decals

My buddy Ron over at Eye of Error is not only a phenomenal painter, great artist in other mediums, and all around good guy, is running a Kickstarter to get a custom waterslide transfer printing endeavour off the ground. It's looking pretty sweet!

Fallout Hobbies will not only be selling an ever-expanding set of decals, but will also accept custom submissions and create sheets of transfers made-to-order! This is something that I am really looking forward to, and I've got a number of ideas I can't wait to see made into reality.

Check the Kickstarter out HERE, and please consider showing him some support if you're in the market for some custom transfers!

Heresy Era Imperial Fists - Xiphon Interceptor painting begins

Not much hobby time this past weekend what with father's day and helping a friend move, but I did manage to assemble and primer the Xiphon Interceptor and started blocking in the yellow areas to get a feel for how it'll look.

Continuing on with the predominantly black scheme on the vehicles, with yellow accent panels. So far I've just laid in the Scrofulous Brown undercoat to try and figure out the proper balance between the yellow and the black.

I'm thinking the large semi-trangular panels on the wings will get the yellow treatment as well, should help brighten it up a touch overall. So far I've been well pleased with the model, went together like a dream, and I'm looking forward to getting some more brush time in on it!

No school like the old school - Confrontation Gang Leader (precursor to Necromunda)

The heat wave continues so my hobby output has been pretty minimal this week - On the upside I got a box of joy from Forge World yesterday which included the Horus Heresy Book V, and the Xiphon Interceptor for the Imperial Fists, but as the model is just sitting in a soak tank not a lot of new pictures of progress. So, time to trawl the photo archives and see what I hadn't posted up while my computer was in the shop!

A few months back while spelunking in the Closet of Doom I struck a rich seam of old out of print minis from the late 80's, and I chiseled a few out of the strata as 'palatte cleanser' models to fiddle around with when I needed a breather from the main projects. I'd documented the painting process fairly well, and thought I'd step through the process as an adjunct to the hobby articles from last month.

  

The model for today is from the way out of print "Confrontation" game whose rules were released in While Dwarf and was a precursor to what would eventually become Necromunda. I always thought the model would make a great Rogue Trader, as well. Starting off with faces and skin, as per the 'inside out' method - everything got a basecoat of Leather Brown, then the eyes got a layer of Ghost Grey, and Bronzed Flesh was used to pick out the forehead, cheekbones, nose and lips, leaving the Leather Brown in the recesses for shadowing.

As a bit of a hobby cheat, I do not actually paint irises on models, instead I turn to a trusty Micron pen in 005. So much more control for someone with fists of ham like me!

 

A quick stripe down the center of the whites using the pen followed by the tiniest little dot of Ghost Grey in the middle of the stripe as a reflective dot. A quick touch-up in Bronzed Flesh for any overspill, and then the extreme edges of the nose, cheeks, forehead and knuckles get one further highlight in thinned Bonewhite.

  

The pants got a basecoat of Jade Green, followed by highlights of Foul Green and Scorpion Green, and then a wash of Biel-Tan Green to help blend it together.

 

The reds and purples were kept pretty dark in hue - As there was a lot of gold detail on those areas I wanted to ensure the details had a dark background to set off against.

 

Laid in all the gold and leather and suddenly the model starts to snap into focus! Overall the model was looking quite dark so the power axe blade and the critter on his shoulder both got a bright blue to (over)compensate.

A few final details, some static grass and the model is ready to go adventuring on the fringes of Imperial space!

Blatant Self Advertisement - ebay auctions

In order to help recoup the cost of repairing my main cogitator and help squirrel away some extra fun money for the rapidly-approaching GenCon I spent some time this past weekend sorting through the finished minis to see what I couldn't bear to part with and what could go up on the block. The first wave of stuff has gone up on eBay, including all of the painted heresy-era Mechanicum I've completed thus far,

A pair of Knight Paladins and the Cerastus Castigator,

Some pointy-eared gits,

...And a couple old and out of print books.

Link to the auctions here! More to come over the upcoming weeks as I delve ever deeper into the Closet of Doom...

Heresy Era Imperial Fists - Sicaran Venators paint in progress

Sadly I am still bereft of my primaris cogitator, though it's scheduled to be done tomorrow so another quick hit post this week. Had so much fun building the Sicaran Venators that I jumped in on 'em and got them almost up to the penultimate sealant stage prior to adding waterslide transfers and weathering:

The overhead lighting blew out the blues, they're quite a bit darker and my ham-fisted attempts at lightning stand out a bit more than here in the pic. Still need to go through and clean up the edge highlighting and add in one more tone lighter for the extreme edges before the initial sealant pass, but so far so good!

In a bit of miniature-based hobby news it's looking as though I'm transitioning to being just a painter rather than a wargamer, as I've had no luck finding heresy gamers locally (or ANY 40k at all, to be honest). That said, expect to see a whole slew of painted minis going up on the auction block in short order - All the minis I have aren't likely to see any table time in the foreseeable future, and I have a few trips planned for later in the year so I really ought to bolster the fun-money fund... The heresy-era mechanicum, the knights, the 40k ad-mech, and much more will all be up for grabs in job lots and individual auctions over the next few weeks (gotta get things organized and take new pics for certain units). Expect a few deep dives into the Closet of Doom for some old-school items as well...

Planning on keeping the Imperial Fists until the whole army is done though, and use it to help fund the next project - I absolutely plan on continuing on with the hobby, no fear on that score!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Magi painting begins!

Not entirely switched over to the summer schedule yet, so only getting a little painting done in the mornings before work while I adjust to getting up earlier than usual. Nevertheless, pressing onwards and laid in the base colors for the two Magos models!

As envisioned earlier, red robes on the magos dominus and white for the archmagos. I also decided to take a whack at reversing the gold/silver on them as well, with the archmagos being predominately gold with silver trim to go along with the white robes. Still a ways to go yet, but so far, so good!

In other news I'm due to get my main cogitator back at the end of the week, praise be unto the Omnissiah!

Heresy Era Imperial Fists - Sicaran Venators built!

Well the weather has apparently turned here and it's now summertime in full force - hit 90F two days running, and the hobby loft has turned into an oven. That means it's time to swap the sleep schedule and start going to bed/getting up an hour or so earlier and getting some hobby time in during the cool of the mornings. As a reward for all the painting I've been doing, I figured I'd take some time and build the pair of Sicaran Venators that have been lurking in a box for months!

Due to the Ordnance nature of the main gun, the side sponsons are somewhat superfluous, so I opted to use the area for a little Imperial Fist iconography instead. ...That, and I do not enjoy assembling that style of sponson on the FW heresy range whatsoever (looks very cool, yet rather frustrating to build) and the thought of doing six of them for these two tanks made me itch. I think they end up looking a bit more sleek and menacing this way in the end anyway! Hopefully I can get them primed over the next few days, I'm already picturing what's going to be black and what's going to be yellow - should be fun to paint up!