Fallen inner circle

This week I painted some Inner Circle Companions. This was the first time in over a year where I managed to take a whole day to just paint. I must have been at it for at least 8 hours straight, and it felt good and it really got my hobby juices flowing. I really love these models has they have a very distinct Dark Angels feel with the robes, large swords and power armour that looks more like medieval armour.

I decided to paint them in "black" armour instead of dark green which is more in line with my fallen Dark Angels. I know they are not part of the original legion organisation but I think they look better in black. This means I will also paint the Lion black, once I get around to doing him.

The robes got a purple colour, which I am happy is also the box art colour, and not the bone white that was popular some time ago. When I painted my original Dark angels in the mid 90ths I decided to use purple robes even though it was not standard then and they go well with these newer models.

The trim got my standard rusted metal look, but it has this brownish tone that gives it a feel of gold unless you look closely.

All in all this was a very nice trio of models to paint. I did not do the standard this time so I might do another three in the future, or I use the standard for some other model. We will se.

Now I spend some time building stuff for opus while I am getting ready for Dreadtober. This year I will do the Saturnine Dreadnought, also for the first legion. 

Pre-Heresy Dark Angels

Did a bit of cleaning around the work space and finished up these guys that have been hanging around there for a year or two. These were painted as a batch of four instead of being painted individually which is the way I usually do things. And, sorry to say, it shows. For some reason the painting is not as crisp as with the others. It might have to do with doing so many of each piece at the same time that I can not keep the focus up. So that is a lesson learned. Do not paint more than one or two models at a time. I am really glad that I am not painting an entire army of these...  or,... there are still 45 guys left in the boxes... .

Now of to some knights... and some new titans... and then there are some more skitarii and thalaxes and...  well that will be for another time.

I must remember why I paint and not get caught up in the "collecting army" mode. Problem with being a sort of well paid adult is that you can buy more models than you can paint.

Cypher

Once again I got stuck in to many projects and have not had the time to finish anything major. As a break from Varangian, knights and other stuff I decided to do a quick paint job on a model that as been laying around for some time, Cypher the fallen angel.

I do like the sculpt. It is dynamic and a bit mysterious with Cypher being wrapped in his old tattered robe. That is also one of the big problems with the model. Since it is so 3D you need to paint it in pieces to get to all the layers. Then when you assemble it you end up with some quite unseemly joints in the robes. I do not know what is worse, not painting things that might not be seen anyway and assemble the model before paint, or doing a nice paint job on the parts only to end up with ugly joints. I went for the paint it before assembly option and had to repaint it quite a lot to hide the worst of the assembly joints.

Apart from it being a bit fiddly to paint I like the result. I just my standard recipe for painting jet black. For the robes I choose the same ice blue color that I have used on my pre heresy / fallen Dark Angels with a purple lining. The skulls etc were  picked out in bone, but their recessed position and size made it hard to dry brush them. I also added some green stones etc to tie it in with the later Dark Angel tendency towards deep green. I also added quite alot of dirt to the lower part of the robe to show that it has been around for some time. Why Cypher does not clean it when the rest of his friends does I do not know.

Well that is a shortie for now. I will try to finish of the main gun for Varangian this weekend and show it of in a couple of days. I also aim to finish most of the GS work that is left to do for the Warlord King of the Northern Ghosts.

Then it will be on to some new projects, and finding some old ones that has been sitting on my desk for some time.

Ultra Dark Sister

This week has been really productive. Managed to build a bunch of models and get some of them painted. First of was some more primaris Ultra Marines. No to much to say about these guys really. I replicated the paint scheme from before. The models as such are nice but does not leave to much for creativity. But still they are relaxing to paint in their simplicity. Next of was a Sister of Silence. I am really fond of these models as they have more realistic proportions. I which GW would make more models like these. But, I am not to happy with the scale increase. She is actually taller than a 30k space marine. Compared to the primaris she is ok but this new scale of the models really messes with all the old stuff. Next was two legionnaires for the 1st legion. I really like how these turned out. I think the mk3 armor fits them nicely. I used the same recipe as for the rest of my pre-heresy Dark Angels. I am making them a bit more dirty and worn to represent their inability to give up. They just stay in the field until the job is done. No time to polish things if there are enemies still standing. In this way they are a bit like the Death Guard, at least as I see them, just as there seams to be one loyal and one fallen legion of each inclination.

Fallen / Pre heresy Dark Angels and Varangian insides

After finishing the War Dancer I cleaned the palette by painting a Pre heresy / fallen Dark Angel. I find this paint scheme quite easy and relaxing and I can do a model in about two to three hours Sadly the camera does not do them justice as it has a hard time with the colors with the lighting that I use. The black comes out to shiny compared to IRL, and it pics up some of the pigments better than others, making the transitions look rougher than what they are.

I have also worked a little bit on the Varangian, filling in the last blocks of the inside and cutting them down to fit with the lid on. So now I can have everything in place on the inside and still close the lid. That means I can start with the detailing, finishing this part of the build, not that I will be done in a hurry, but it was one of the big questions marks on this build. The rest of the modifications will be pretty basic with GS sculpting and some minor re-shuffling of some pieces. 

Things do not always turn out as you plan

In my last posts I have hinted at a reinforcements for the northern ghosts in the form of a Warlord titan. This has now arrived, but since it was delayed from Forge World and the delays in our house building made the arrival coincided with wall paper work, it resulted in it now time to start with the clean up. Once the wall paper stuff was done we received visitors that stayed for a week and hence still no Warlord work. But it turned out the the guests were really interested in Wh40k, which meant that I got to exercise my models in a number of tutorial battles. We started out with the Dark Vengeance box and played two battles, one ended in a close win for the chaos forces, the other was a total wipe from the imperials. The next day we played a 1000p battle using codexes, Chaos vs Dark Angels/Adepta Sororitas which also ended in an imperial victory.  Sadly it becomes more and more apparent that I have forgotten or mixed up rules from over two decades of playing (due to lack of continuous practise) and I am not so sure that all things were actually according to the correct rules. Anyway, it was great fun and I am reminded why I started playing once upon a time, and it is always nice to see my lovingly painted  models actually dish out some damage.

Our guests became so enthusiastic about the whole thing so they decided to also paint up the Dark vengeance set, but they needed some hints at how to paint, which meant that I got to do my first tutorial in a very long while, painting a mk IV marine in pre-heresy Dark Angels black.

So my Warlord is still sitting in its boxes, waiting for me to get some time of to start with the cleaning and so, but I will get back on that subject as soon as I have some progress.

Dark angels cataphractii

Once again real life intrudes and takes all my time. This time it has been building on the house that has kept me from painting. Our house that we build 2012 came with a finished down stairs and a potential second attic floor. We always intended to finish the second floor but at the time of building the house resources were a bit short. Now we have taken the plunge and started the interior work on the second floor, but as I am travelling a lot with work, we realized that it would take forever if we were to do it ourselves. So we brought in contractors to do all the insulation, water, electricity, plaster boards etc...  and we would come in at the end and prep the walls for wallpaper and put in the floor boards (just to save some money and to have the feeling of actually have done something). Well, we thought that this would be easy and that we could do this at our pace, but as it turned out we needed to be done with this before the general contractor could finish the last of their commitments. To make a long story short, we have been buried with this for the last weeks and hence my mini output has been minimal.

Be that as it my, I still managed to sneak in a few hours one evening and painted one of the Cataphracii from the betrayal at Calth box. I think it turned out nicely. Painting black is not that exciting as most contrast are easily lost, but the amount of details with ridges etc. gives the model some depth even though it is black. I also made a group shot with some more modern terminator armour, also painted in the pre-heresy dark angels colours.

Pre heresy Dark Angel base swap

Recently me and the mrs played our first wh40k battle in many years, pitching my pre-heresy Dark Angels against her sisters (with some post heresy DA stand ins). One thing I suffered in this battle was the curse of wobbly bases. My assault squad with jump-packs kept falling over all the time as the resin jump-packs make them top heavy and un-centred. As the betrayal at calth, and I suppose all new marines are on 32mm bases I decided to change the bases and also take the opportunity to try out some more shoulder patterns. removing the old bases without damaging the models turned out to be a pain as I used polystyrene cement when i glued them in in the first place. Well some careful cutting with a scalpel solved that. I am not sure if I should make the same patterns on all shoulders within a squad or if I should give each marine his own heraldry. I think the individuality might be hard to keep up over some 50+ figures but it makes it more interesting to paint, and it also goes more with their back-story of the knightly orders.


Well we will see...    next up is some more mechanicum things. I am almost done with my second castelax so I hope to have some pics of it soon.

Dark Angels; Pre-heresy, Legion, Fallen etc...

Well, I have not done much with the knights lately as work and other things has taken much of my time. Instead I went back to some of my fallen/pre-heresy Dark angels and had a look at the colour scheme. I have already painted most of the Dark Vengeance box as pre-heresy or fallen dark angels, they are however snap fits and the wrong armour but I have also started to paint some knights with sword and shield and now that I have the betrayal at Calth box with mark IV armour I thought that I might actually do some real legion/30k variants. I test painted one tactical marine ha few week ago and added some black and white checkers, red stripes etc to give them something that set them apart from any other black armoured legion. However, as time passed I thought that it more and more started to look like a Goff space marine with the checkers and so. As I am quite pleased with the Dark Angels knights I thought I would change the tactical marine to fit the scheme, which included some bone white fields with red detail. I also went back to one of the assault marines and added the same touches of bone white and red to tie them into a common and distinct theme. I think it works and it also ties in to the medieval knights theme of the legion.

I also managed to paint the last of the cultists from the Dark vengeance box so now I only have the characters left from that box, so I can start on the Calth box.

That is all for now, I will probably have a short break on the trio of Knights to gather some momentum to finish the belt feeds, which I by the way managed to bend into a somewhat better shape, allowing the torso the motion I needed for the pose. I will get back on this as soon as I have finished of the last details on these.

Pre Heresy / Fallen Dark Angels

Me as so many others bought the Betrayal at Calth game for the Mk IV armours and a starter for a 30k force. I have always liked the Dark Angels since the first Angels of Death codex and since I already have a substantial Pre Heresy / fallen Dark Angels force I decided to do a quick paint test on one of the Mk IV armours to see what it would look like. I added some blue white checkers to the paint scheme but otherwise I kept it in-line with what I already have. I put it in a line up with the other armour types already in the force (it is in the middle). I think it can work, just need to sit down with the bases.

Very short post

I am just home and repacking for yet another trip so I have not done much really. I finished a pre heresy Knight and worked a little on the WLK, getting the legs assembled and posed in a new position, adapted the fingers of the power fists so that the can grip the handles of the weapons and finally got the weapon in some sort of order. Not much but it is something

Dark Angel Knigth and Eagle guard

Well, here we are again.Long time, no blogg. I have been having problems focusing on the painting lately. To much other stuff going on, which means the work on the last Myrmidon is going very slow at the moment. In the last two weeks I have only manage to finish one of the weapon arrays. It is quite a large part and it is mostly green which makes it tedious to paint. I need to make sure I take the time to get the shading as smooth as possible so that I will not regret it later on and there for I am stalling with the painting. Instead I have been doing some smaller models with more variation to them, and most importantly, something I can finish in one or two nights. There are two terminators, one for the Desert Eagles and one for my pre-heresy fallen Dark Angels. When painting the Eagles guard for the Desert Eagles I realised that it was quite some time since my last Desert Eagle and I did not get the colours quite right. I thin k I will have to start writing down the recipes. The Dark Angel turned out ok. I quite like the sinister look of the model and pose. I think it captures the look of the pre-heresy, medieval, full plate, knight. I have also been working a little bit on Opus, but I do not have enough progress yet to post any pictures. The idea is to finish the flight deck so that I can start painting that, even if the rest of the model still has quite a lot of work left. That should give me some motivation to actually focus a bit and get some progress in the build. I would like to have it structurally done before summer, then I can build details in smaller bouts.