Out with the old, in with the new?

Unfortunately the Thousand Sons didn't sell as a complete army, which isn't totally surprising - it's tough to drop the cash for an entire army all at once. That said, I've broken the army up into individual units and some small lots (that logically fit together in their own battlefoam trays).

Link to Auctions

On other Heresy-era fronts, I worked on a couple test bits for the World Eater Terminators - the torsos are still winging their way from Russia, but the legs and arms will be coming from the loyalist Assault Terminator kit. I'm going to be utilizing only the legs with the full greave (as opposed to the ones with the separate knee pad), and adding some rivets that I picked up from the Tichy Train Group to the left legs. I picked up an assortment of different sizes - These are .050" diameter, and seem to be just about the right scale for infantry models.

I'm also planning to have the Terminators armed with big Chain Axes which will be counts-as Lightning Claws (it looks like could force a failed to-wound re-roll!). The regular troopers will have the singe axehead style, while the sergeant will get the double bladed version to help him stand out in the unit.

Another set of models originally built for the Thousand Sons has been re-purposed for the World Eaters, in the form of the Dreadclaw-inspired Drop Pods. I cleaned them up and gave them a re-primer and started blocking in the colors on the first of two:

Unlike the previous Land Raiders (on which I had some fairly patchy results), I'm going to re-basecoat anything that is going to be blue with black first rather than painting the blue directly onto the white. The Drop Pods are also going to have a fair bit of weathering done to them, going to try out some of the heat scorching ideas I've gleaned from around the blogosphere. Should be fun!

Heresy Era World Eaters - Battle Company Captain painted

Next model done - The Captain of the 7th Cohort, 3rd (Battle) Company. There's a half dozen old metal armor marks banging around in the Closet of Doom, so while I wait for the FW order to arrive I thought I'd do another test model.

 

I'm finding that not only is White difficult to paint, it's also somewhat difficult to photograph. My usual tricks for white balancing the pictures seem to blow out the whites on the miniatures, so still some experimentation to go there. Tried out a little sponge weathering here and there, though he didn't get any blood spatter as yet. I'm holding off for now on this one - at the moment I'm only planning to do that on the chain weapons in the army.

 

Need to go a bit more extreme on the highlights on the infantry I think, going to be trying a tone darker with the grey washes used to lowlight the armor and see if that helps. So far so good, though!

Heresy Era World Eaters - More Land Raider progress

Made a start at the weathering for the Land Raiders, and cleaning up the patchy blue. From here on out, for the vehicles I'm definitely going to be starting with a black basecoat under the blue, rather than attempting to paint the blue directly over the white. Sheesh.

Added a bit more battle damage to the tanks overall, utilizing the sponge and stipple method, then went in with some washes and tried my hand at oil and mud streaks around the rivets. After that I tried some of the new textured paints GW have come out with, primarily along the lower hull, and along the track sections.

 

"Goliath" is painted to match up (mostly) the artwork from the Visions of Heresy novel. I slipped a bit with the brush and got more mud down the right rear side of the tank, but in retrospect I think it works, and the whole edging along the track rollers could use a bit more mud spatter on both sides of the tank. It's all very experimental at the moment!

 

"Blade of Fury" is a bit more subdued, mud-wise. Overall I'm happy with how they are coming along, though there's still more work to be done! Bit the bullet and made the first Forge World order for some infantry and a Storm Eagle, really looking forward to getting stuck in on that kit!

And the winner is...

Just got back from a nice getaway weekend, and I was floored by all the kind words upon my return - I really appreciate it, everyone! It's humbling (and a little scary) to know that all of you are out there enjoying the decent into madness that is my hobby! Thank you all once again for all the support and feedback you've given over the years!

That said, before I call it a night I broke out a set of polyhedral random number generators, consulted the Emperor's Tarot and the Storm Raven goes to...

Tristan M! 

Tristan, I wasn't able to find a contact email on your profile, so please contact me at moonlight (at) cold-moon.com and we'll get you sorted out!

I have some more World Eaters coming your way in the next day or two - stay tuned!

The "250th Post, and 4 Years" milestone giveaway!

Holy cow! I just took a gander at my post history and this is post #250. Not only that, but as of yesterday, I've been banging away at the blog for 4 years. FOUR YEARS?! How does that happen? I want to send all my readers a huge THANK YOU for all the support, comments, and constructive criticism you've given me over the years, and as a token of my appreciation, I delved into the Closet of Doom to come up with something to use for the reward for a giveaway contest! How does a brand spanking new Stormraven sound?

As part of the planning for the Heresy-Era World Eaters, I'd picked up a Stormraven kit that I was going to use for conversion fodder to make a Stormhawk. Of course, not but two weeks later, Forge World announced their Storm Eagle, and suddenly the kit I'd picked up became superfluous. So, here's the plan - 1) if you're a follower of my blog, and 2) you post a comment on this post, on Sunday night (4/22/12) I'll randomly pick out one of you fine folks and send you a brand new, on the sprue Stormraven kit (sans shrinkwrap though, as I had opened it to ensure everything was intact and correct)!

Once again, a tremendous thank you to all of you who have followed along on my meanderings through the blogosphere, and I hope to provide you with many more years of hobby goodness!

Cheers all!

Joel
Mordian7th

Adeptus Mechanicus - Warhound Titan painted

One of the spoils I brought back from foreign lands was a Warhound titan - Although I'm not sure if I saved on shipping based on the cost of the plane ticket... Hmm.  In any case, one of the wonderful Fugitives was kind enough to set me up with a custom upper carapace with a resin Machina Opus on it, and I couldn't wait to get started painting. ...And there it sat in a half-finished state for the last month and a half. But no longer!

I'd decided to go with Legio Metallica, as the Gold and Red with Black & White hazard stripes ties in well with the intended scheme for the upcoming Ad-Mech revival army. Some pretty minor conversion work on the rest of the model to add some banner hangers and so forth.

 

I took a crack at weathering the loincloth banner, and it turned out all right. It was only after the fact that I realized I hadn't trimmed the ragged edge into the banner, but it's going to be pretty tough to trim it now. Ah well. I added the Adeptus Titanicus symbol to the right leg and painted on a scroll with some High Gothic (read as: terrible Google mistranslation) nominally reading "Ride The Lightning". Har! I was exceedingly pleased with the effect on the silhouette the updated carapace gives, it feels a little sleeker without the big spikes. It's definitely a challenge painting something on this scale - now that it's in 'showroom condition' I'm considering going the weathering route on it. I think I'll hold off until I get some more practice in with the World Eaters, however.

In any case, rather pleased with how it's turned out. Now it will sadly just go into a battlefoam tray and not see the tabletop until well after 6th ed comes along. Or 7th, based on how our last apocalypse game was almost 3 years ago... Sigh.

Heresy Era World Eaters - Angron painted

I had a free evening on Friday and decided that I'd keep right on going with Angron. I also am trying out some new lightbox techniques, which I think helps to capture the right colors and tones.

 

While the Heresy era World Eaters livery is white and blue, most of the artwork for Angron shows him in red and gold so I tried to stay true to that. Most of the pictures show him with a red triangular tattoo across his forehead and scalp which I attempted to mimic, and I also painted in a few wires from his temples back to a little device on the back of his neck to represent the various psycho-surgeries and aggression amplifiers.

 

Similarly, along his temple and across his back I painted some scars. It seemed that Angon would bear some lash marks from his time as a gladiator. The axe head of God Tearer and his loincloth got the white treatment to tie him in with the rest of the army, and I added a few extra little flashes of color with the melta bomb and grenades.

 

Angron towers over our stalwart guardsman, as is only fitting! I also snapped a picture using my old method, and I'm torn. The overall balance and focus is definitely much better with the faux lightbox, but I do like the depths and scale that having the terrain provides...