Ultra Marine Redemptor dreadnought

Well....  I am still here, sort of. Last couple of months have been really hard on me and it ended with me on sick leave. Hence not much blogging. But on the other hand the doctors told me to do what makes me relax, that and a lot of exercise. So for the last month or so I have been painting and taking long walks in the forest.

So one of the projects I have finished during this time of contemplation is an Ultra Marine Redemptor Dreadnought. The original model is sort of an eye sore, something is just wrong with it. This of course made it a challenge for me, not that I especially needed one for my collection, but just that challenge, to try to rectify what was wrong, was enough for me to buy one.

So what is wrong with it? All in all it is a really nice model with a lot of posing options and all that which we as collectors and modelers like with a model. But in this case I think it is down to some really subtle design decisions that has taken it over the edge of the chasm of doom.

The first and most obvious error is the beer keg or the pregnancy belly. I do not know what the designers though when they when down this road. For this there is luckily an easy fix, just don't attach the lower hatch and seal the bottom in some other way that doesn't make it to front heavy. There are several versions of this to be found on the internet.

The second is the toddler stance. for some reason the legs are just spaced to far apart, compared to their length, making the stance somewhat awkward. It is not just the distance between the legs that is wrong, also the width of the stance compared to the upper body is wrong. The shoulders of the dread needs to be wider than the hips! And, as i happened to notice by accident, the legs are to uniformly thick in their original assembly, like tubes. My solution to this is to carve of the inner rings for the legs so that I could mount the legs closer together, and to mount the thigh armor the wrong way around (giving the legs some shape).

The third and probably not really a fault is the sarcophagus. I could probably live it as it is, but as most of the 30k dreads has a "helmet" sensor cluster, I think the dread lacks a point of focus that helps keep the eye away from fault one and two. I found some pics on the internet where people had put the upper torso of a marine in place of the to of the sarcophagus giving it a much need focal point.

Once I had sorted one to three I also decided that, as this was probably the only one of these models I would build, I would like to paint both weapon options since I thought that the were excellent sculpts. Sine most of my models end up on display I really do not go for swapable weapons, instead I cram them all on to the model. In this case I believe that it is actually in line with the primaris way of things. So I put the Gatling on a shoulder mount and the plasma thing on the arm.

This was also a great opportunity to try my way of painting metallic colors on a larger model. So far I have only tried it on some primaris marines and Guilliman.

The end result of my endeavors is something I am rather pleased with. I think the modeling changes I made to the original model makes it look better (in my opinion). However, the addition of the Marine to the dread makes it look more like a piloted walker rather than a walking casket (I think this is due to its size compared to a Marine). The paint job is a bit of a stretch for such a large model, and I think, that if I would do this on a tank I would have to come up with something else. As it is there is not enough contrast on the model between the plane areas and the edges. But for smaller models it works fine.

So there you have it. I have been gone for a while but not out of the businesses. I will be back with some more updates on other things that has been done during my hiatus. The Varangian is coming along, and there are some Mechanicum reinforcements as well as custodes and sisters of silence and some Death guard. Well, that will be for another blogg post.

Varangian ankel WIP 2

This week will be a short update as I have only managed to do the second set of hip and toe pistons for the Varangian, so basically the same post as last week but for the other foot. So not terribly exciting. This does however mean that I am now more or less done with the legs. Then it is just to finish the base and I have done what I aimed at for this stage. Then I will take a Varangian break and do some other model just to rest a bit before moving on to the upper body and the interior.

Varangian ankle WIP

This week I have pushed on with the ankles of the Varangian, finish the metal borders on the toe pistons. I also finished and attached the pistons between the left leg and the pelvis. All in all not much new stuff but I am getting closer to finishing the legs. Then I can do the rest of the base and this piece will be done. After that it is on to the upper body box and the interior.

Varangian and green stuff

Well, I did manage to get the legs painted and assembled over the holidays more or less like I planed. It took me a bit more time than I though to get each leg to a point were I felt comfortable joining them to the pelvis. I do not understand how people paint this thing assembled. I still need to finish of the toe pistons and the pistons at the hips and get them securely glued in before I trust to place to much weight on the legs.

But I could not resist attaching the armor plates and the upper body for some quick shots. As you can see I have also started to work on the chaos-i-fication of the armor plates. There is lots of space to work with so it will take some time I believe before I can get some paint on them. It is always a balance act when working with green stuff. If you add to little it does not look believable and if you add to much it looks overworked. I tend to add a little at a time and let it rest in-between to get used to the feel before adding more. At some point it just feels finished and then it is time to paint. In the meantime, until this feeling of completion arrives, I will keep working on the interior, but I might paint the upper box just to get the whole body finished and then ad the plates, shoulders etc. I also need figure out how to attach the arms and weapons in a reasonable way.

The project is not moving quickly but it is moving.

As a note on moving. The stance of the legs are in a position were the titan is steeping over the highest object the titan can traverse, which turns out to be a chimera APC. When assembled like this and at full height it really becomes obvious that the knee joints of the legs are a badly flawed design for a walker this tall.

Roboute Guilliman

This is a model I have had for some time now and since it is the holidays I thought would treat my self to something special. Guilliman was easy to assemble and did not consist of too many parts. However, there were once again some effects that was a bit disturbing. I have seen others clean up the sword and remove the flames with good effect so I tried this. It turned out that it was a bit harder than I thought to get the blade smooth afterwards but it is what it is. The brazers were easier to fix as I just skipped them. I also shaved down the jawbones a bit on the head, making it look a bit less cartoonish. I am not sure that this comes across as the neck of the model is still way to broad. It also looks like it is just a mask over a metal skeleton the way the skin wraps over the neck pistons etc.

I did the paint in the same way as the rest of my smurfs, starting out with a deep blue, and adding metallic drybrushing, watered down blues and more metal drybrushing. It is a really fast way of painting and it gives a really nice finish. After this is was just to add some details etc and the main body was done. The back piece and shoulder that is a solid gold got painted separately together with the sword. For the sword I first tried a bold version but it did not look good so I went with a more traditional white metal instead.

The base was really nice to paint. A lot of detail but it worked really well with drybrushing. The fallen chaos marine got a version of pink armor that I really like. If I did not already have to many models I might be tempted to paint a squad of these.

All in all, a quick project, almost speed painting compared to my usuall pace. I hope you like my take on the imperial 40k posterboy.

Varangian feet, WIP

Hello, if there is still any one coming here. I have not been as diligent in updating this blogg lately so I understand if there are not that many of you. This autumn has been though and it has been hard to find time and motivation to paint.
I do however get a sprint in now and then painting the odd figure here and there. One of my big regrets is that I have difficulties making progress on the Varangian. This is a lovely model, and it is fun when I get the time to sit down, but progress is slow as the model is huge and there are tones of detail everywhere, so it is hard to finish anything. But I am sure that I will eventually finish it of. The near goal is to finish the legs and the base. I just need to the toe pistons and attach the legs to the base and the pelvis. Each legs is painted as six different parts, each having the traditional base paint, ink, three layer dry brush, ink, three layer drybrush, sponge weathering and painted brush painted rust. The same goes for the toe pistons and everything else. Then I add the meal work in the same fashion, so it is not so strange that it takes time. Since I am not done with this yet I show some WIP pics to give you some insight to the progress at least.  The toe pistons in the pics still need all the metalwork done. Then there are four more to do.

Well there is not much more to show at the moment.

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.