Heresy Era Heroes of the Imperium - The Master of Mankind painting begins

Been pretty quiet on the hobby front this past week, but I got a little time in to start laying down the gold on the Emperor. I'm rubbish at the NMM technique, and figured this is not a model to experiment on so the ordinary metallic methods it will be!

Started off my laying in a basecoat of Brassy Brass. Generally speaking I find most gold paint to be rather translucent, and laying a gold in directly over a black basecoat tends to make for a dull lifeless color. The brass is a bit more opaque so covers over the black well, and will 'shine through' the gold making for a richer, more vibrant color.

Glorious Gold was liberally drybrushed over the brass, leaving the deepest crevices to show the brass coloration.

Next up the upper surfaces were given a light drybrush of Polished Gold, making sure to only draw the brush down the model from overhead, leaving the under surfaces in the previous gold color.

Once that was done, the model was given an initial wash of Reikland Fleshshade. This helps add a rich reddish-gold tone, and helps define a lot of the details. At this point the model must be left alone for a good hour or so to properly dry (you can see it's still wet in this photograph), so further steps will have to wait until a later day. Next up comes the more painstaking part, going back in and with a fine detail brush start selectively highlighting the various details and scrollwork to brighten it back up again and help it 'pop', followed by a further selective pin washing. As far the model itself goes, still feeling the head is a little small, but overall I'm quite happy with the sculpt. Lots of neat little details that I'm catching now that I'm really looking at it up close!

In other news I'm finally getting the Rogue Trader campaign I've been working on off the ground starting in a couple weeks, so there's a good chance there may be some more 40-themed RPG minis crossing the painting desk in the near future. The Geno Five-Two are down to the last handful of colors as well, holding off on pics until I can finish 'em up and lay out pics of the whole infantry group, though!

Heresy Era Heroes of the Imperium - The Emperor of Mankind, part one

Got frustrated trying to batch paint line highlights (madness!), so as a respite I returned briefly to the grim darkness! Another box arrived on my doorstep yesterday, a small package that I'd ordered from Kabuki Miniatures back in late November and had almost forgotten about. Just a small package...

In point of fact it was disconcerting how small the package was - that box is about 5" on a side. I hadn't purchased a Kabuki model in something like five years, as the 'Angron' model I'd purchased ended up being barely space marine sized, let alone suitable as a primarch stand-in and I was supremely disappointed in it. The measurements on the website suggested these models should be more appropriately scaled so I figured I'd roll the dice (and take advantage of a sale they were running). With some trepidation I cracked open the box and was relieved to find that the models were sized far more appropriately and so bustled everything in for a soak and scrub.

The models were virtually free of flash, though were several different colors of resin which isn't a dealbreaker but does give off that 'garage kit' vibe and makes me worry somewhat about quality control. That said, everything appeared to be crisply cast and there were almost no bubbles to worry about filling in. I'm somewhat ambivalent about the Custodes sculpts (they're neat but I'm holding out for the Forge World models which ought to be spectacular), but as it's been mentioned a few times that FW doesn't intend to do models or rules for the Emperor any time in the foreseeable future, I thought the Kabuki version of the model would be a fun little art project, and give me a large-scale model to try and really lavish some attention on.

The model comes with a two-headed cyber-eagle that I'm saving for another project, which allowed me to alter the pose somewhat. I don't have a primarch model on hand to compare sizes with, but he does seem to stand about a head taller than the ones that I've done in the past. Large enough to warrant a 60mm base at the very least, and towering over the alpha legionnaire!

I'm going to have to do a lot of research on painting gold before I ever put a brush to this model. Definitely want to do it justice, and really push myself to get beyond the "decent tabletop quality" I usually accomplish. Should be fun!

Agents of the Emperor - Officio Assassinorum Painted

Had a bit of a restless evening so I spent some time working on the assassins last night and finished them off this morning while doing some laundry.

Thoroughly enjoyed working with these models, though in retrospect I should have left the Eversor and Vindicare separate from their terrain features for ease of painting and assembled them afterwards.

 

The Eversor is definitely the stand-out model of the set for me, the sense of motion is fantastic.

The Culexis has always been my favorite of the assassins, and the new model definitely doesn't disappoint. I've always loved the somewhat Giger-esque form of his helmet!

The assassin that's always been a reliable death-dealer for me in the past, the new Vindicare sculpt is probably the least interesting of of the four, but still a solid model.

The Callidus is a fantastic sculpt as well, albeit somewhat difficult to photograph - it looks a little ungainly in the pic, but it really has a lithe athleticism to it.

Overall, I really dig the new models and I really enjoyed the brief diversion from the sea of yellow I've been painting of late! Listening to Nemesis while painting these has me thinking about trying to model up a pair of Venenum and Vanus operatives to accompany these four...

Agents of the Imperium - Officio Assassinorum built

Quick departure from the tidal wave of Imperial Fists of late - I really loved the look of the new assassin models that came out as part of the Assassinorum Execution Force game, and knew when I saw it that I had to have 'em! My FLGS got a copy in for me last night and now that I have it in hand, I have to say that while the minis are gorgeous, the game itself looks like it may be quite a lot of fun as well, which was a pleasant surprise.

Took a little time and got the four assassins included in the set built, I am really impressed with the sculpts dynamic poses and level of detail. Definitely looking forward to getting some paint on 'em, just bought the audiobook version of the Horus Heresy novel Nemesis (all about an assassin team sent to kill Horus) so that ought to provide some suitable background listening while I do so!

Agents of the Imperium - Expeditionary Navigator painted

I was getting a little weary of painting crimson, so over the last few mornings I've worked on Fortunato Locarno instead! He's going to be part of my Thousand Sons force so I needed to tie him in thematically, but I wanted him to have a contrasting color scheme - Good ol' Tzeentchian blue and yellow it is, then!

  

House Locarno assigned Fortunato to the XV Legion in the early days of the Great Crusade and he served with distinction, showing an almost preternatural ability to guide the Thousand Sons vessels to their destinations swiftly and unerringly. Afforded training by the Corvidae Cult, he gained unprecedented prognosticative powers, however in later years dark whispers that his abilities were enhanced via dark pacts with servants of the Architect of Fate proved to be all too true...

I'm not completely happy with his shoulder weasels (which thanks to Dave Taylor, I can't get out of my head). I wanted to go with the blue-white similar to that found on the Sons and the Spireguard, but I'm not fond of how the spots turned out. Not sure how to save it without overly gumming up the details with overpainting, though. Hrm...

Agents of the Imperium - Expeditionary Navigator Fortunato Locarno

A friend of mine was able to attend the recent Heresy Weekender in Nottingham and was gracious enough to pick up one of the event-only Navigators and mail it (along with some other event goodies) across the pond to me. Woo-hoo!

  

I've always loved the lore behind the Navigator Houses, it's a fascinating sub-culture in the 40k universe - they are inextricably woven into mankind's history and exploration of the galaxy, and they have incredible power and influence that they can bring to bear. This fellow will be joining my Thousand Sons army as Expeditionary Navigator Fortunato Locarno - whom I envision as being the great great (great great etc) grandfather of Lustram Locarno, the navigator called out in the RT-era rulebook.

He'd also sent along a couple of the event catalog pamphlets which to my surprise actually included rules for the Navigator! Granted, they were written for use with 6th ed, so some of the rules don't really apply anymore - still, he'll be a fun addition to the army!