Heresy Era Alpha Legion - Dreadtober Contemptor almost done!

Wonder upon wonders I had a half day on Wednesday and got a little hobby time in! Thought I'd crack on with the Contemptor and more or less finished it off to the 'factory floor' stage. Touched up the symbols and silver, and added a touch of orange and gold for spot colors. It's been a little too rainy to risk trying to seal it however, so any further weathering and waterslide transfers will have to wait until it dries out a bit!

 

Still experimenting with the bases - In Legion the desert sands of Nurth are described as being red-hued however I didn't want to go full Mars red with it (for fear of it being too cartoony against the purple of the models), so a more subdued reddish brown it is! Starting with Vallejo Dark Flesh as a base coat on the dirt, it was then drybrushed with Earth then washed with the ol' Devlan Mud analog (Strong Tone Ink from Army Painter). To give it some variety but still be desert-y, some of the more exposed chunks of rock get the sandstone treatment starting with a base coat of Earth, followed by successive drybrush passes with Khaki and Bone White. It too was then given the Devlan Mud wash. To be truthful the wash stage mostly consisted of using the "slop it on the whole darn base, you cheating hack" method. Hah! Since I ordinarily paint the rims of my bases in Dark Flesh, I thought it might be refreshing to switch it up on these models and go with a lighter rim painted in Earth to set off against the darker terrain. It's workable, but I'm not 100% sold on it quite yet.

  

All that remains is a little flock to give it some life and a sense of scale! I didn't like my usual green mix when I used it on the earlier test models, so this afternoon  I ordered up three different tins in varying tones, with the intent of creating a combo mix - The arid straw color will form the backbone of the mix, with just a couple tablespoons of the other two just to give it a few blades of color here and there and stop it from being quite so monochromatic.

While I was faffing about waiting for various washes to dry on the Contemptor, I started assembling the first of two squads of the Dancers company of the Geno Five-two. I'd ordered up a whole mess of separate 'universal rolled sleeve' arms and a mess of lasrifles, but to my horror when I was looking back over the catalog I noted that Victoria Lamb does sprues of rolled sleeve arms with integral lasrifles identical to what I'd ordered and would undoubtedly save me hours of hobby frustration. Argh! One sheepish follow-on order later... No worries though, the universal arms will come in handy to build a couple characterful models, vexillaries, vox operators and the like!