One year achievements

I thought that I would make this post on the anniversary of this blog, but I forgot so I will make it now instead. This is what I have painted during the last year.

Last year at this time I was going through a rough time and I felt that I needed something to occupy myself with as well as having something relaxing to do. For a long time I had wanted a Forge World titan, actually the though of a titan was awakened some time 20 years ago when I visited a gaming club and someone had brought a armourcast reaver. At the time I did not have the financial means to buy one so I thought about scratch building one but it never happened. When the FW titans where released I once again found the urge to paint one, but I could not really motivate myself to by one. But as I needed a large, all consuming project last year I finally decided that a trio of titans would do. I did have my wive's blessing to buy a titan but I think that she was a little shocked when I ordered three. I did pay for them form my own stash so the family funds did not take the hit.  Well, as I was looking over the internet for inspiration a came across a lot of titan WIPs. So I decided that a blog would also be a nice way to document the project. I also came across some ad-mech armies and different paraphernalia. One thing that fascinated me were the different defiler knight conversions. This gave me the opportunity to build something titan like to have as a test bed for painting techniques before applying them to the titans. Of course a knight and and some titans can not be without scitarii troops to protect their feet so I had to build some of them to, so I took the opportunity to make a tech adapt with a robot and servitor as well. Then if you look carefully you will see two chaos marines that where the first models painted to try out the color scheme of the legion. And then I also had a predator hanging around that I finished of while waiting for the titans to get assembled. 

So now we will see what I will do next year. The titans will be done soon so I will have to find something else to do. I have thought about some models that I would like to paint. But I have also thought about doing a new space wolf army but we will have to see what comes up.

Note to self

"When starting a big project, like painting up three Forge World titans, check that the paints you are going to use are still in stock, or that you are absolutely sure that the amount of paint you have will be enough for the whole project!"

I am not sure, but I think most of the paints that I use in this project are no longer sold, so I am reduced to scavenging paint from "find boxes" or depending on the charity of the local hobby center that has kindly provided me with some of the out of stock paint jars form their hobby corner.

Apart form worrying about the amount of paints left the project is rapidly moving forward, painting armor goes quite fast and as that is what is mostly left I can now count the total of unpainted pieces on my fingers, and not using to many on the left hand at that.

Then of course I can go pack and add details and free hand to the titans later, but soon they will be covered in paint and all the major details will be done. So all in all I am looking at about a one year total time for this project.

Reaver work and green stuff

In the last titan post I realized that I was running out of thing to paint as the titans are getting close to completion. It is only the armor plates left to do. So I decided that I would start to clean up the Reaver and second warhound weapons so that I would have some more things to paint. However, some of the parts needs a lot of green stuff to get them to match up with the rest of the Titan panel work. At least two of the weapons are also pure imperial versions and will need some chaosification. I started out with the weapons already modeled as chaos and began adding the same patterns that I have used on the other panels. I then realized that these are the last emblems that I make on these titans so I added several of them together to make more complex designs. These designs where put on the power fist and on the back mounted missile launcher.

 But then I stated thinking about the shoulder plates that I had already made some work on. The undersides are quite barren, which is in contrast to the rest of the titan. After some thinking I decided to ad the cog wheel design to the under side. I do not know if I am satisfied with them. But they are on the under side so they will only be visible if you look for them. They might look better with some paint.

But is has not been only green stuff. I have also painted the reactor covers on the reaver and the upper part of the arm holding the power fist. Here I put the legion insignia and the titan serial number on the "biceps". It turned out nice so I think I will do the same on the other titans, i.e. not put things on the biceps but combine the the legion and the serial. So now I will paint up the power fist, the back armor and the shoulder plates, then the reaver will be mostly done. As I have the option to change weapons I have decided not to attache the power cables to the weapons. On the guns this is ok as the ports are not to eye catching. But on the power fist the cables are attached to the elbow armor and either it was to file them away or do some thing else. I chose the later and attached the cables as on the original, but instead of having them go up to the titan I bent them so that they attach to the shoulder instead.

Then I only have to paint the outside of the upper body of the second warhound with its back armor and it will be done so far as the titan. I will still have to paint up the weapon as well as green stuff two of them. So I am not there yet, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am fairly confident that I can have them done before Christmas if I can keep up the pace. So now I will go back to the hobby lair. 

Dark Angels from the past part 2

According to the statistics of this blog the "Dark angels of the past" is one of the most popular post we have on this blog. It is constantly in the top even if its quite some time since it was published. So here is a follow up.This time I am presenting my  Death Wing army. This is actually the part of the Dark Angels that got me going in the 90th. I was at that time a dedicated Space Wolf player and my army was expanding.

Partially due to their Nordic culture fluff and partly because it was the only space marine army with dedicated figures. So when the Death Wing terminators where released I just had to by a set of them. At the time we where on a holiday car trip around the UK and I just had to visit every GW store we came across. During tis time I also bought all the fluff I could get my hands on, Wh 40K compendium, 40K compilation, 40K "vehicles" etc...

So as soon as I got back home I started out to plan the painting of the Death Wing as a liaison to my Space Wolves. Fluffwise this was a bit on a stretch as the Dark Angels and Space Wolves do not get along so well. At the time the Death Wing was mostly known from the space hulk game expansion Death Wing.

 As the new terminator set was introduced they where presented as bone white which I found was in contradiction to the fluff background found in the Death Wing expansion. In the original fluff a squad of Death Wing space marines in their original black canopy returns to their home world which is based on a native american back ground. As they find their home world usurpered  by a genestearler cult they realise that they probably will not survive the cleansing of the planet so they prepare them self in their cultural way for death by calking their bodies white with lime. Well aplying a was of white lime over a black armor will not give you a bone white look so I choose to paint them bone white, ink them black and then dry brush them back to white using bleached bone and bone white giving them a withe washed look.

Well as I got the first squad painted I realized that they looked better than my Wolf guard counterparts and as time went I slowly brought the wolf guards over to the Death Wing, creating this army. In its time it was a complete 2k army, now I don't know if it would muster up to that amount. As my Dark Angel army grow I also started out with the the inner Circle of the Dark Angels, painting Aszrael, Ezeikiel, Asmodai ets a also decided to paint some green terminators with robes similar to the inner circle models. At this time no terminators where available in robes so I had to sculpt them using miliput. Well the army is almost finished and I am thinking about painting up the last elements once the Titans are done. I will come back and present the rest of my Dark angels in another blog post, so until later then.

What happened?

I recently discovered something strange. After having had the warhound assembled over the summer I had to open the back carapace the other day and realized that the insides had taken on a wet shine. It almost locks like I gave it a coat of clear hard coat but I didn't. So what happened. In the picture to the left you can see the inside of the back carapace, it was sprayed with a mate black base paint and has not been touched since, but you can clearly see a line dividing the front form the back. This line matches the contour of the warhound body. In the other picture I compare the newly painted firewall to thew reactor room in Wolfish Perversion with the one that has been mounted in Unbearable Desire, and it is a clear difference in color. Admittedly some difference in coloration can be expected as since I might not have exactly mixed it the same way, but the surface texture is completely different. The newly drybruched surface is slightly rough and looks dry, like stone while the one out of Unbearable Desire is smooth and slightly oily and has a wet look. This can be seen on all the interior parts of the titan while the outsides look like the newly painted surfaces. I have no idea why this has happened but my guess would be that during summer and the temperature has gotten the resin sweating and that on the interior parts the oils released form the resin got stuck while they evaporated away on the out side, but I don't know. There might be something more sinister going on, the descent into chaos is under way.