Dreadtober 2018 - House Vyronii Armigers livery on!

Dreadtober is upon us, which means it's time to paint some giant stompy death machines! None of my current Heresy projects include any dreadnoughts so instead I'm working up a quartet of Armigers to mill about the feet of the Knight Lancer I'd done a few months back. It's been a rough week recently so I've been remiss on getting stuff posted and updated on the Dreadtober page but the always awesome Todd Sherman has been keeping a hand on the rudder. Big thanks to him for keeping the ball rolling in my absence!

To begin with all the metal areas were given a pass with Vallejo Gunmetal, drybrushed with Chainmail, then given an Army Painter Strong Tone wash, which gives it an oily, dirty metal look.

Next up was blocking in the House Vyronii livery, which is an emerald green and white. I didn't want to paint each one identically, so they each got a bit of a half-and-half pattern that ties them together color-wise but keeps them individualist which I think suits the knightly order vibe.

Next up was the gold trim and cleanup of the areas where the livery got out of hand. They're starting to come together nicely! Now on to all the fiddly detail work and basing prior to the initial sealant pass step. Once that's done I can do the waterslides and weathering - So far, so good!

Heresy Era Word Bearers - Assault Squad Built!

Just a quick hit today on the Heresy front, before setting them aside for a while and diving in to my Dreadtober project. I wanted to add an assault squad to the Word Bearers force, but with the recent price rise the big resin assault squad just got crazy expensive. I figured that as I had a plethora of Mk.IV plastics, I could likely put together something a little more frugally. After trawling through eBay and Pop Goes The Monkey's offerings on Shapeways for appropriate bits, I more or less succeeded!

Though the legs on the plastic Mk.IVs are fairly static (not a lot of running poses), with the assault marine arms they still look pretty dynamic. I really dig the PGtM jump packs as well, though they're a little blown out in the pics. Quite looking forward to getting some paint on 'em, but that's going to have to wait, for now it's time to paint GIANT STOMPY MACHINES!

Dreadtober 2018!

It's almost that time of year again, when monstrous mechanical machines make much mayhem! That's right, it's time for...

I'll be helping out the inestimable Todd Sherman from Sincain40k in helping collate all the entries for this year's celebration of all things stompy! Head on over to dreadtober.blogspot.com and sign up - We'll be collection folks pictures and showing off all the awesome stuff you folks come up with over the month of October. It's not limited to just Dreadnoughts, of course - any big stompy machine is welcome! In point of fact, I don't personally have any Dreads in any of my current projects, so will instead be working on a group of Armigers that have been languishing on the painting desk for months. I always like these kinds of events as a goad to get some long-overdue project into (and subsequently off of) the painting queue!

It's the most Dread-full time of the year! Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Heresy Era Word Bearers - Argel Tal bits accumulation begins!

After re-reading The First Heretic and Betrayer for the 4th and 5th times, respectively, it was more or less a foregone conclusion that I'm going to have to build an Argel Tal model for my burgeoning Word Bearers force. ...Especially since there are no rules for him and barely any way of representing him on the tabletop, so the whole project totally wouldn't be a huge waste of time, money and effort. Nope, not at all!

I'm attempting to coerce a friend of mine into doing some World Eaters and come up with a "battle brothers on Armatura" themed team force for Adepticon/NOVA next year, though I might break down and do some World Eaters myself next anyway. Love this piece of art, if anyone knows the original artist please let me know, my web searches have been inconclusive. Whomever it was, they did a fantastic job!

My plan is to make and Argel Tal model where his daemonic aspect is at the fore (and really, why would you not?) so figured this Gal Vorbak model would work well as the basis for the conversion. I may update the head if I can find a viable replacement, but if not I do think it works pretty well as-is.

For the left arm, I'm planning on utilizing the arm on the far right of this picture, one of my favorite bits off the Possessed sprue. Generally used as a stand-in powerfist for normal-sized troopers, it ought to make a decently-scaled 'regular hand' for Argel Tal. Some of the remaining bits may find themselves scattered throughout the rest of the force...

Great pains are taken to note Argel Tal's wings, which as the former Captain of the 7th Assault Company is only fitting. I didn't want to go super massive with them with something like Daemon Prince or Hive Tyrant wings, but they needed to be imposing. Made a roll of the dice and ordered up some Vargheist wings, which appear to be a good medium-sized wing set. We'll see once I have them in-hand, I suppose!

Of course weapons are a consideration as well - Argel Tal is described as carrying a pair of Custodes guardian weapons, a spear and sword which he swaps between in combat depending on the circumstances. Scaling being a consideration, I went with some Allarus Terminator arms figuring they'd be slightly beefier than their power-armored counterparts, and suitable for the bulk of the Gal Vorbak model he'll be based on.

Finally, I was a little stymied by what to use for his sword, as I really didn't like the look of the slightly stubby Sentinel Blades from the Custodian Guard kit, but eventually stumbled upon the swords from the Vertus Praetors kit, a good size and sheathed as well, so I can have him wielding the spear and have the sword sheathed across his back as described in the book. On the up side, there's multiple spears and swords, so I may be able to build a version of Argel Tal in his 'regular' form as well and have some continuity on the look!

Of course, all the bits are coming in from the four corners of the globe so it may be some time before my fevered scheme comes to fruition, but I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in!

Heresy Era Word Bearers - Ashen Circle Painted!

I was having a good time painting up the Ashen Circe, and pressed on to the finish line with 'em over the last day and a half!

From a pose perspective they're a little odd - I definitely understand what the sculptors were going for with the models leaping/touching down, but from certain angles they tend to look like they're pirouetting. With a single toe or heel touch point on each model, they were all given nice long pins up into the legs and deep into the bases to hopefully keep them in place.

Can't be one of my projects without getting my signature blue on 'em somewhere. Hah! Still, blue and red are good contrasting colors.

Part of the intent was to put some shredded/charred papers on the bases of the Ashen Circle (among other models) so I went out on the interwebs and pulled down some arcane script pages and shrunk them down to try and make something I could print out. This first pass ended up being a little large for my needs and shrinking them further made them more or less illegible smears on my printer, but they may be useful to attach to vehicles and the like as pages from the Book of Lorgar!

So far so good! ...Or should I say, so far so evil?

Heresy Era Word Bearers - Ashen Circle painting begins!

Just a quick hit this morning, pressing on with the Word Bearers and the Ashen Circle are next up on deck!

Painting them separate from the bases and backpacks is a new thing for me, still working out what works for me. Originally I had them on paint sticks akin to what I used to do with Napoleonics, but they proved too unwieldy at this scale. So the long pins were repurposed as handles, and I'm using a foam block to hold them upright as I work through the group. Got the reds and pewters down, on to all the fiddly detail work!

Heresy Era Word Bearers - Zardu Layak and the Gal Vorbak painted!

Was down with a massive ear infection a week and a half ago which meant there was a surprising amount of hobbying being done (mostly due to the insomnia from the pain). The newest Heresy project rears its ugly head, in the form of...

The Word Bearers! Over the years I've done the most loyal of loyalists, and several misunderstood traitor legions, but figured it was time to do the full-on moustache-twirling-evil guys!

 

While I will undoubtedly get around to painting Erebus and Kor Phaeron, my initial intent was to have a force led by Zardu Layak and his Blade Slaves, as I was really taken by the models. More or less followed the 'standard' paint scheme for them, with Zardu wearing the old greys, while his possessed bodyguards wear the crimson and silver livery of the late-heresy legion.

 

 

The models that really got me into the project in the first place also marched across the painting desk over the last week - The Gal Vorbak are just extremely creepy models, and are really what the possessed marines ought to look like! I'm tempted to do a second five and try some conversions and kitbashing (so it's not just two of each guy). Great fun to paint!

The intention is to do a force that was present on Calth, and as such I knew I wanted to do some faux-marble bases as befitting of the Ultramar worlds. Turns out Secret Weapon does a near-perfect set of bases for just such a theme! I added a little talus to them to rough 'em up a little (they're 'pristine' out of the package) and spent a fair bit of time trying out various techniques until I settled on one that I liked and could reproduce reasonably consistently.

Of course, can't have a new project on the trot without a new painting chart, now can we? Working on the Ashen Circle next, pics to follow soon!