Heresy Era World Eaters - Adepticon Force 90% done!

Now that the bases have arrived I'm in the home stretch with the World Eaters force for Adepticon - All that remains is a trio of Contemptors of which I'm awaiting delivery! Had some time yesterday to break out the photo tent, brace yourselves for a tidal wave of pics!

Kharn and Khargos Bloodspitter

Command Squad

Skane's Destroyer Squad

Tactical Squad

Assault Squad #1

Assault Squad #2

Dreeadclaw Drop Pods

Heavy Support Squad

Rhino

Sicaran Arcus

Proteus  Land Raid

The all-important painting chart!

Starting to get a  little anxious about the contemptors arriving (they're from a garage casster in the UK, so it's understood that they're being done in his spare time), so I'm scheming on someme alternate plans just in case they don't arrive in time for the con. Fingers crossed!

Heresy Era Word Bearers - Army Complete!

Another army complete, and likely to be sold off without ever actually hitting the tabletop? Seems that way! The Word Bearers army that I'd initially planned for Adepticon proved to be thematically incompatible with the events that I'm participating in (hence the recent World Eaters). Nevertheless, in the background I have been chipping away at 'em and with the delivery and subsequent painting of some last remaining bases, the army is complete! Figure I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Argel Tal

Kor Phaeron and Erebus

Zardu Layak and his Blade Slaves

Legion Chaplain

Gal Vorbak

Cataphractii Terminators

Apothecarion Detachment

Cortus Contemptor Talon

Assault Squad

Tactical Squad

Ashen Circle

Sicaran Venator

The all important painting chart!

Pretty happy with how the army turned out, and am a little bummed that it won't get any table time at Adepticon. Such is life, however! They'll be going on the auction block soon enough to help fund the next project - What that may be remains to be seen, but there's a non-zero chance that it's going to be a return to the Benevolent Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor, if the recent upcoming release reveals are anything to go by...

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Armies on Parade family photo!

I recently finished off the last of the models I had assembled and figured a family photo of what's been painted up so far was in order. Packed everything up and popped over to the local GW to put them in the Armies on Parade lineup and snapped a few pics!

There's actually quite a few of 'em once I got 'em all laid out! Fairly infantry heavy so far, but I find it's good to crank out a mess of infantry and leave the big toys for later. Still plan on adding more to the force, and there's quite a bit still awaiting assembly, but we're looking at about 3500 points complete already!

Couple off-angle shots as well - Pretty happy with how the greens turned out across the force, and I'm rather enjoying the various spot colors here and there, the hot oranges pop nicely against the cooler tones of the armor.

Updated the painting chart and really pleased with how it's coming along! Still a few things on the ol' wish list to order up from Forge World once the new rulebook drops, and a couple models still awaiting assembly in the Closet of Doom. However, I'm thinking I might switch gears for a bit and work on a different project for a little while to recharge the batteries after all this green!

Heresy Era Sons of Horus - Vets and Characters painting begins, and a few more builds...

Bouncing back and forth between projects this month is helping keep things fresh and the painting servitor has been operating at peak efficiency! Got a fair bit of brush time in over the last couple evenings and made some headway on the veterans, Maloghurst and the master of signal.

Started off by giving the models an undercoat of 50/50 Black and USMC Tank Crew, to give the models a nice base for the green to highlight up from.

Next up was a generous drybrush of straight USMC Tank Crew, concentrating a bit heavier on the upper surfaces. Maybe it's the year or so of painting nothing but reds but I gotta say, I really like this green!

Time for the edge highlights! After the stylistic experiment of the recent Thousand Sons, I wanted to get back to my preferred style, and all the armor plates were picked out in USMC Tank Crew Highlight, again concentrating primarily on those edges and surfaces that were exposed to an overhead light source. Also roughed in the reds on the topknots and banner.

The reds were given a wash and highlight pass, and then I went back and re-blacked all the weapons and shoulder pads which cleans up the models dramatically. The black was then given the initial highlight pass with a 50/50 mix of black and Sombre Grey. Starting to come together now!

The second box o' joy arrived yesterday containing, among other things, some legion upgrade kits (shoulder pads, helmets, etc.) and I set to SoH-ing some event only models I've had kicking around for ages. First up is a Primaris Medicae, in a Cataphractii variant suit of armor. He'll be joining the squad of lightning claw terminators planned for the force.

Next is a traitor terminator librarian. I didn't end up using him in the Thousand Sons army for obvious reasons, but he's gonna fit in fine with the Sons of Horus!

Last but certainly not least is of course Ezekyle Abaddon, the not-quite-the-despoiler yet. He'll be leading the big ol' squad of Justaerin Terminators, and will be transported to the fray either via teleportation or in the belly of a Spartan Assault Carrier. There's a model that I'm not particularly looking forward to assembling!

While I'm definitely going traitor with the force, I have always wanted to build and paint the Abaddon vs. Loken duel vignette, so there will be one loyalist when all is said and done!

40k Blood Ravens - Characters painted, more or less...

Rather than spam the blog with every single step I figured I'd push ahead and post up the (more or less) completed models, and keep the recipe pics for my own reference. So without further ado, a whole mess o' character pics!

First up is the commander in Gravis armour - I really dig this sculpt, he's heavy and brutal, and the wrist-mounted bolter with the ammo feed is a nice design touch.

Really dig the Primaris Chaplain sculpt as well, another brutalist re-imagining of an iconic model. I particularly like the Iron Halo!

The Librarian I'm of two minds about - I enjoyed painting it, but felt that it's the least epic of the new character models. Nothing particularly remarkable in the design, though it is solid and reads as a Librarian straight away. Went back to the well with the ethereal green weapons and cabling, which sets off nicely against the blue and red.

Ah the new Apothecary - I absolutely LOVE this new sculpt and think it may be one of the best Apothecaries they've done. Really enjoyed painting him up although from what I understand they lost a little utility on the 8th edition battlefields.

The Ancient is a fairly unremarkable sculpt comparatively speaking, but as I've always been a big fan of banners on the 40k battlefields, I really did enjoy building and painting him. Picked up a sheet of totally-not-blood-raven-transfers (wink!) from Fallout Hobbies at NOVA and was well pleased with how it turned out!

Finally, the four Lieutenant models - Fairly basic marine sergeant type figs, but pretty happy with how they turned out. Had to use my usual bright blue color scheme somewhere in the projects after all, and the power swords fit the bill nicely!

Now for the downsides - Overall I'd say when the dust settled I'm only about 75% pleased with how they turned out. It was a bit of a speed painting exercise after a long stretch of no real hobby activity, and they feel a little rough. I know that I can do better than this, and looking back over them there are some pretty jaggy blending and shading issues here and there. Part of that I think comes from painting-red-fatigue and in retrospect I think I may have been better served choosing some other chapter than the Blood Ravens. I'm committed now however, so we'll press on regardless.

That said, I just got a shipping notification for the next batch of Sons of Horus bits, so sometime in the next week or so I should be getting a nice big box o' joy from Forge World, which includes enough bits and kits to actually get started on the next Heresy force. I'm really looking forward to getting cracking on with the sea-foam green scheme, and will be taking some lessons learned from this current project to heart when it comes time to bring brush to model on the SoH!