Ravenwing Attack Squadron.

Well, this has taken awhile, but I've finally finished a Ravenwing Attack Squadron of 6 bikers for my dark angels.

These guys, and indeed every type of biker I always find a trial to paint. each one is somewhere between painting a tiny vehicle, and painting a marine. As there is 6 of them, they always take my a long time to slog through.

So, the first half of the squadron is the bikers from the Dark Vengeance boxed set. The starter models Games Workshop make have com a long way now. You can barely tell the difference between the normal box versions and these guys. Another scary fact about the bikers, is that these models are only about 4 or 5 pieces for each one, and they will hold themselves together without any glue.

 

 The second half of the squadron is made up of regular marine bikers kits with Ravenwing upgrades. These upgrade sprues do wonders for the now pretty damned older bike models. I did a Minor conversion with the flame trooper. He got a tactical Sergent's head and his flamer stretched out at and angle, and his bike angled to look like he's making a sweeping turn. This brings the 2 halves of the squadron together as he looks more in line with the dark vengeance guys.  

 

As well as the slog to get through these guys being bikers, I also knew I'd be hard pressed, as I fall into that category of painter that finds paint black a challenge. or at least I did, until I found this article on From The Warp.

 

I'll let you read that article yourself, but the trick I took was that if you paint everything around the black well enough, it will all come together as you finish your model and your flat black plates with suddenly fit right in.

It works well if you have a steady hand for the your line highlights, but if not, you can always got back over the thicker lines and sharpen them up with some pure black.

I think the finishing touch for these guys was the weathering powder from forge world, which I'm starting to fall in love with, now I'm finally getting the hang of using it after so many attempts. If you're going to try using it, I would say get plenty of practice first, and keep it subtle!

The dry mud I used on these bikes adds that extra layer, giving your eyes something other than flat black to look at.

And the full squadron take my army up to 750 points finished and done. Hopefully there wont be such a big break between this and the next 250!

Till then. 

Gonders 

Dark Vengeance, Dark Angels first 500.

Right now, I am in the rarest of hobby situations. Normally If I'm painting an army, I only have the drive to paint that force. So if I'm doing a an Imperial guard army, for example, I'll pour over the codex, be googling and searching other peoples models and generally getting a bit obsessed with them. This is how I can comfortably finish a project without wandering down some other path and ending up with half painted armies everywhere. Normally the obsession will last long enough to get the whole army painted.

Weirdly though, right now I actually have enough drive to get on with two projects, being my Dark Angels army and the Chaos Warhound Titan I have looming over everything in the background. If you've noticed, my blogging has been about both of these over the last month or so.

So what do I have to show and tell today? I have finally finished my first 500 points of Dark Angels. Shaky group shot...

This is all you get in a 500 point marine army nowadays. I'm quite happy with how they look as a group.  

So the new additions are this half tactical squad, fresh from the Dark Vengeance box. The models are nice enough to paint, but I can't help but think the insignia and symbols moulded on the shoulders are a little bit large and comedic for my tastes. I know they're only cheap starter models but I think they could have made them a little smaller. 

After painting all that green, it was time to mix things up just a little, and I cracked on with the leader for the army, the Librarian from Dark Vengeance. This guy is nice to paint, he doesn't quite have the cheaper feel some of the starter set stuff does. It was a good chance to practise my blue, which I've not painted in a while.

Quick shot of his back too, just to show off his wizard's cloak. All I have to do to finish him is to paint in his runes on his force sword.  

That's it for now.

Gonders.

  

Dark Angels Razorback.

So despite the fact I've started a new project, I'm still cracking on with the Dark Angels I started a couple of weeks ago. I picked up a pair of the fancier than normal forgeworld razorback kits, one with twin heavy bolters and one with twin lascannons for them, so they can travel about in luxury.

This is an in progress picture of the first, which I also bought a fancy 'dozerblade for. I added a couple of minor bits, the shield on the front is front a Warhammer Empire swordsman, and I replaced the head lights with baneblade vision port to give it that gothic arch look that suits the Dark Angels so well. I put a leman russ vent on the front plate and added plastic GW Dark Angels symbols to finish the conversion work.

These shots are the same tank finished off. To weather the tank, firstly I applied a layer of dark umber acrylic using a sponge around the bottom few millimeters of the whole tank. After this with on older brush I applied forgeworlds 'Dry mud' weathering powder to a level just a bit higher than the umber. I think the 'dozerblade lends itself to the weathering powder well. You can see the umber and the powder blending well together on the metalic end strut of the blade.  

I sealed the powder on with two heavy coats of turps, making sure the first was entirely dry before adding the second.
 

With that, The job was done, ready to hunt some tanks!

Thanks for reading,

Gonders 

How To Paint a Chaos Warhound Titan. Part one.

I appear to be going through one of those 'can't stick at anything' phases. I've painted 10 dark angels and started something new. Unfortunately, I've now got quite a back log of models I could do to paint, and not enough time to do it. but hey-ho, such is life.

So i started re-reading Dan Abnett's Titanicus at the weekend. Find me one person who starts reading that book, and doesn't rush to build that titan they've had waiting for a couple of weeks. Well it isn't me.

So here I go with another big old project. I've been here before, and as is tradition, I find myself starting with this shot.

This is all the parts to the Warhound's body, laid out on a 4'x4' gaming board. Doesn't seem like that long ago I did the same with the Reaver last year now. 

So after an evening with a dremel and a handful of steel pins, I got the legs to this stage. None of this has any glue on it yet, and all the pins are placed so the legs are posable as they can be. I've built a warhound before, and I know they are a bitch to get a good pose for. you need a degree in engineering, and a few extra hands at the very least. 

The first thing I did after this was to cut the base. Once again, being of a joinery disposition helped that. The base is made from 12mm MDF, and is going to be modelled(to match his big brother), like he's smashing through an imperial city. Here, the curve on the second layer will be a set of steps leading down into a fountain/square area. The bottom half will have black and white checks like marble tiles. And the top part will be street level. More on this at a later date.   

These four pictures show how I progressed posing the titan this evening. If i hadn't done this before, I'd be panicking the legs are to out stretched, which they do appear to be. However, its never clear quite how big the hull for the machine is when you've only built the legs Once the top is on, it'll even the proportions somewhat. 

This is where we stand now. I've hung the armour plates on their pins here to show how it'll look more bulked out later on. 

This carefully balanced shot shows how the stride will look better later on. I have just noticed I've been photobombed by my own Reaver here, which I've had kept at the back for reference while I was building. Oh, he's a cheeky monkey!

Well hopefully more comin' soon

Gonders

Dark Angels Tactical Squad.

As mentioned in my last post, I'm starting a Dark Angels army, just like the rest of the world and his dog.
I've now finished my first squad. Half of these guys were from the last post, but I've since applied a bit a ware and tear to the Armour, notable some light dry brushing of boltgun metal and some dry mud weathering powder from forge world .

I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out. The only thing I'm not sure on, is that I've not found a decent way of making sure the weathering powder sticks. I've power a layer of white spirit of the powder on the these models, but even after this has dried, you can still rub the powder off if you really try. I'm going to have to try some different methods. 

I've also started work on the first transport for the army, this here forge world razorback. hopefully I'll have it done for my next post!

Preparing for Vengeance

It seems like the world is about to go either Dark Angels or Chaos mad when it comes to 40k at the minute. Unless you've been hiding under a rock, as they say you'd know the new 40k starter set, Dark Vengeance is out tomorrow.

I'm planning to kick off a growing tale of four gamers style campaign at the lost boys gaming club to set us into sixth edition 40k proper. As the new boxed set contains Dark Angels, who were in fact my first proper 40k army all those years ago, and Chaos, my all time favorites, it'd have been rude not to order myself a copy.

As I have a good few thousand points of chaos forces, I thought this would be a good chance to go back to where I started and have a go at the emperor's 1st legion. 

Now, I've not actually painted marines for quite a while now. So long in fact, that there aren't any more here on my blog, as my last marine army predates my first post. I went back to basics, picked myself up a tactical squad, and cracked out the paints. These pictures are of my first finished combat squad. 

Ok, they aren't quite done, still got bases to go. Painting marines after so long has really shown how far my painting has come. I wouldn't have been able to properly shade and highlight those eye lens' last time I tried.

 

And I certainly wouldn't have been able to try the fiddly bits on my sergeant's banner and shoulder plate. 

So my advise, is go grab a copy of Dark Vengeance and go back to basics, just for a painting exercise. You won't realize what you know!

Sneaky peak for the future!

Gonders

The Turncoat Navy. The Thunderbolt Fighter that couldn't make it's mind up.

So for a few years now, I've had a forgeworld thunderbolt fighter hanging around, me not really having an imperial army for it to go with.

Last year, when I started building my chaos apocalypse army, I slapped some chaos stars across it's wings, just so I could throw it on the table...

Which looked alright, but if I'm honest, kinda ruined its clean imperial paint job. 

The other day, whilst browsing some well known nerd forums, I found a thread in a wanted section posted by a guy looking for imperial fliers to buy. I offered him the t'bolt, but he wanted it without the chaos stars. Kinda wish I'd used transfers now.

So this morning I set about trying to remember how I painted those clean panels all those years ago. 

This is the result after an hour or two. I don't think its quite as clean as the first time round, but I don't think anyone would notice when its on the table. 

So maybe he'll finally find the right battlefield to strafe in a new home. I think the years I've had it sat in a cupboard, it won't happen with me. 

Gonders