Dark Angel Devastators/Veterans - WIP

Hi guys and gals,

After I posted my goals for the remainder of the year here I felt extremely energised and decided to get straight on with it (thus ignoring everything else I had already started in that post...gah!) and pulled my Grav cannon converted devastators on to my painting desk. Which is also my buildiing desk, my work desk and my bin apparently...

My Devastators are built from sternguard parts for the legs, torso and heads. This was because I had them lying around, AND because I decided to magnetise them fully, it means I can still take off the weapons and use them as veterans or a command squad if I so wish. So I will at some point magnetise and paint up some additional arms and backpacks for them to fulfil that role as I am quite happy with how they have turned out.

Anyway here are the bodies all finished and done:

Apologies for the poor pictures, I just couldn't get the light and the flash to work together on these guys. I have a new lamp coming at the end of this week though! Much like the rest of my Dark Angels, they are properly Dark, with a concession to variety in the red and cream cloth. 

I am currently priming the weapons and back pack array so I should have some WIP pictures of those guys tomorrow or wednesday. I am also going to prime my anvil industry models I am using for scouts and hope to put some work into them tomorrow as well!

Peace out,

Rob

Dark Angel Assault Marines - Complete!

Bonjour, ca va?

Here is my completed 5 man squad of assault marines. I'm really happy with my basing scheme and I think it looks particularly good on these guys. I have another 5 of these but instead of bulking out this squad per se I think they will be used to form another 5 man squad and help fill the required components for another Demi-company thus bagging me free transports! Though I don't plan to use that except in ultra-competitive situations or by mutual agreement before hand as otherwise its a bit of a dick rule. 

Peace out,

Rob

Hobby Butterfly and Things to do before New Year

Hi everyone,

I sat down to do some hobbying last night and I just couldn't concentrate on one thing so here are a few picture of what I got myself working on and then I'll just lay out what I'm hoping to get done before the new year kicks in! A mini challenge to myself to make some good progress!

First up we have the final librarian for my Librarius Conclave. I have put off starting this guy as he is all glued together and that makes the painting that much more fiddly! But I was pleased to just put a few very messy base layers on him last night and get the ball rolling, lots left to do but it give him more shape finally and makes the task seem easier from here:

I also started on the reaper autocannon for my 30k Dark Angels. This guy is a little bit more tricky than the lightning claws purely because he has more detail overall. But he should look good when he is done :)

And finally, whilst I was digging through piles of cr*p on my desk I found this guy who I totally forgot I had bought! I got an undercoat and work should commence this weekend!

Plans before New Year

So, I have one very set goal I want to complete before new year. That is to complete the bare minimum for a Lion's Blade Detachment with my Dark Angels. The things left to do are:

- Grav Devastators

- Devastators drop pod

- Scout for auxiliary formation

This would give me a neat little Dark Angels force that will work in a CAD or Lion's Blade Detachment. The plan then would be to ally them with my Blood Angels and get some test games in finally!

Other than that I have a few goals I would like to complete but I can live with missing:

- Finish first squad of 30k Terminators

- Build final 10 Death Company

- Build and convert 1 squad of Alpha Legion for 30k

-Finally stop pussy footing around and pick a vehicle to buy from forgeworld. I've set aside £100 for this so I just need to pick one... Or maybe spend more and pick 2 ;)

Anyway, just a little update from me, hope to have something more solid soon!

Peace out,

Rob

Dark Angels Assault Squad - WIP

Good Afternoon all,

I had a very productive Monday evening hobbying away. I have really got myself into a good groove at the moment with three different projects on the go so nothing is feeling stale with a good mixture of building and painting a variety of aesthetics and styles.

So on Monday I sat down to my undercoated and 25mm based Assault marines for my Dark Angels Demi-company, picked out the Sergeant, a flamer special weapon and 3 normal dudes and here's how they looked by witching hour when I decided to call it a night. Apologies for the flash on the camera but it was late and I'm still mourning my main painting lamp dying :( 

I need to do a few details on the Sergeant and base them all but then they are finished! Next up is the Grav Cannon Devastator squad and their drop pod. The drop pod is undercoated and the Devastators have all their DA specific shoulder pads now so that should commence this weekend coming hopefully, though beer may intercede and plead ignorance...

Peace out,

Rob

Alpha legion test scheme - rusty

Hi everybody,

Just a quick update on my Alpha legion test scheme today. I decided that the damage looked to light and based on all your feedback I needed to tone back the green. I think I may have gone too far the other way but I quite want to bash these guys up but I don't know how it looks to a less scathing set of eyes as I invariably hate things I have painted!

So thoughts please :)

I'm planning on taking the scalpel damage further on the other miniatures so hopefully I can produce a better damage look with them with less need for the mad skills of the painting..

Anyway, comments as always appreciated :)

Peace out,

Rob

Review of MaxMini Products

Hi Again internet, how are you today? Ah full of porn you say, terrible shame.

Today I am going to run through a couple of purchases I made from Maxmini that will be used to flesh out my 30k Dark Angels force and just ones that looked cool!

The models purchased are pictured below:

 I tried to get a good close up picture to show you how good the quality of the individual fingers are on the far right fist. They are stunning. I may try again to see if I can get it better.

The bike is a darker grey resin than the fists and of the other 2 I bought both of them had one of the rear fins snapped off. The one pictured had the bolter barrels snapped off as you can see. This leads me to think it is a cheaper more brittle resin, maybe as its a bigger blockier piece to cast? 

The fidelity of detail on the power fists on the other hand are simply stunning and the resin is nice and flexible with plenty of give to prevent breakages with such small detailed pieces. 

The detail overall is excellent, but for £15 a pop for the jetbikes (hence why I only bought 3) I am a little disappointed to have all 3 of them with at least one breakage.

Below I have built and converted the jetbike to have a heavy bolter as they will have in my list:

I think they look much much better than the scimitar dick bikes from forgeworld. One of the few ugly models I think they make. The aesthetic of this bikes fits much more with Sammael's bike in 40k, which if it is a relic from the past would make sense that old bikes look similar to it?

Anyway I am happy with it. I plan on drilling a 3-4mm hole in the bottom and using stiff wire as it stand so I can bend it and pose it dynamically.

If you are interested in Maxmini products, here is a link: Maxmini

I hope this has helped :)

Peace out,

Rob

Third Dark Angels Tactical Squad Completed

Hi hobbyists,

Here we have my final Dark Angel tactical squad completed:

All for today

Peace out,

Rob

Knights of Old Caliban - Second Squad of Dark Angel HeresyTerminators

Hey peoples of the internet,

So using the pride of the legion rite of war in the 30k Horus Heresy ruleset you can take both terminators and legion veterans as troops (I think you have to take them to fulfil the compulsory slots actually) so I have been working on my second squad to fulfil the troop requirements for a 30k army.

Unlike the previous lightning claw squad these guys will be armed with chainfists represented by chainswords of huge proportion and also have a thunder hammer as well instead of a ranged special weapon. This squad will be called the Bane of Caliban, and are old knights given Astartes retrograde augmentation that defied the Lion on Caliban. As a last redemption they are sent a suicidal squad into battle as the face of death.

With that bit of fluff I decided to make them look more chaos-y than the others (so more like the old school knights of Caliban) and gave them helms recommended by D Power on google+ and also used a chaos shoulder pad as a death mask with sculpted hair coming out of the back for the sergeant.

I'm actually really happy with how the greenstuff hair turned out, though its by no means perfect but the turn of the hair as it folds on itself really pleased me! I'm generally happy with the mean eclectic look they give off as well, I think when painted up they will look pretty cool. And as I get more used to the zenithal painting technique I hope to have these done fairly soon.

I cast a few copies of the chain swords as I only got 2 of the design I wanted in the pack. The casts aren't great but I hope to disguise there shortcomings with the paintjob so they should look OK when I am done... Maybe...

Peace out,

Rob

Alpha Legion - Test Scheme 1

Hi Readers,

I said in my post about the Alpha legion that I wouldn't have anything ready till after christmas... well I lied! I couldn't help having a play. I originally wanted to make the model look like Imperial Fists that the paint had come off revealing they were actually Alpha Legionaries in disguise.

Unfortunately I just can't get that to look right. It either looked too messy or just like an odd form of camouflage. I think its a really cool idea that someone more skilled than myself could pull off or perhaps I could once I develop my skills but alas not for now!

Anyway here's my first attempt at an Alpha legion scheme with a little bit of converting on top. I'm actually very happy with how it looks but a bit of feedback never hurt!

Do let me know what you think :)

I apologise for the poor quality photo's but one of my lamps died sadly :( I shall have to invest in a new one soon. 

Peace out,

Rob