Varangian Vulcan Mega Bolter

Quick update today. Finished the Vulgan Mega Bolter that goes on the Arioch Power Claw. I am not sure I am happy with the GS sculpts but it is what it is now. The skulls could have been better I think and the idea with the chains did not work as I imagined. Well you can't succeed every time and I will see it as a learning experience.

Varangian missile launcher

Over the last week I have manged to get quite a lot of painting time in and finished of the right shoulder missile launcher for the Varangian. I basically painted the same way as everything else on this titan. A base coat of yellow-green on the base structure and a brown green on the outer armor plates covered with a blue and white chevron that is peeling of. Add some bulled holes, rust pockets and a lot of weathering and it was mostly done.

The winged bone skulls were painted the same bone as the other skeleton parts on the gun and intakes. The membranes between the "fingers" of the wings were painted in the same mottled way as I have done with the webbing on the insides. The missiles were painted a rust brown-orange to give the some more contrast over just doing them white. I also for go to make any stripes or nose tips on them, representing the lack of maintenance, or the lack of initiative to do anything to the missile bodies.

All in all I am happy. I am getting better at GS sculpting. It is still not on a professional scale but it fills it purpose on this model. Now I only have the left shoulder laser to do and some shields. The, finally it is time for the crew (the cockpit was painted before without the crew members).

Wrapping up some lose ends on Varangian

I finally got some time to wrap some things up for Varangian. I have had some small parts sitting around for a long time that "just needed" some paint. Well, as I now can start to see the end of my work with Varangian as a whole I though it was time to finish these so that I did not end up with a lot of minor things to finish once the big parts are there (I still have some small stuff to do on one of my warhounds that I sort of not got around to finish).

First up was the void shield generators. As I had to add some extensions to the forward couple I decided to sculpt some bony organic things with spikes to go with the void dragon spines sculpted on to the cooling ridges. I also planed to do them in a full bone scheme but once I got the base in I realized that I needed to break them up with some darker areas. So I whent for a bronze centre surrounded by a "bone rim". I thought about doing my usual weathering to the bone but decided to let it be for the moment. Then I added some electric blue to the core representing the energy going into the void fields. I useally do not add glowing effects to my models as I would not be to smart to have big glowy things on your war machines that makes them easy targets (might also be that I am not to familiar with osl techniques). I also do not know what material it would have to be to contain energy and still be transparent. In the end I think it worked out ok, perhaps not as I imagined but still ok.

Second thing to tackle was the mauler bolt cannons. I had an idea of building a magazine for these as I do not see how they are feed. But then I sort of did not feel to comfy with what I built so I decided to just do them as intended by the sculptors and not worry to much about how things work. I painted them in my yellow green base color, weathered them and gave the barrels some heat staining but nothing. It is a simple enough scheme that does not add to much clutter.

The third item on my to do list was the neck chain. I had already done the one mounted to the left leg and I sort of had a wage feeling of unease about painting it so I have not been to keen to do the second one. But if it is not done now Varangian might be walking around with a backed out chain forever and we cant have that so I just had to bite the bullet and get painting. Once started it was not so bad as I remembered. Might have been that I used slightly different colors and that it gave me some better control of what I was actually doing. The base of the chain was painted as some rusted steel ingots with some gold and silver emblems. As it is the neck chain I also opted for some added bling in the form or green stones in place of the iron rivets on the mechanicum cog. The shields on the leg chain was painted with Varangians heraldry and I thought that I was just going to the same on this one. But then I got the idea to add the Titan owners club heraldry on one side instead as an homage.

Last on my list of little projects were to finish the pistons and cables for the arioch power claw. These items had been forgotten when I primed the claw and have just been lying around. Once painted I attached them to the claw. I might have to blend them in a little better though but then again, the claw is now attached so I might just forget it.

WIP, arioch power claw

I am still here but life is currently taking priority so painting has more or less ground to a stand still, so progress on the arioch power claw is slow but I am getting there. I will be back with some more pics once it is done.

Varangian volcano cannon

Finally finished the first weapon for the Varangian, the volcano cannon. This is a beast to paint. It is very difficult to handle while painting and there is enough details to equal a normal main battle tank. I have probably spent some 15+ hours on this piece alone, but then again it is also cost the equivalent of the main battle tank so it is worth putting the time in.

Off course I did not make it easier on my self as I just had to sculpt some over detailed dragon head on the gun shield. It was a blast to sculpt and I have been looking forward to painting it, but painting the dragon head was a pain...  handling the shield with all the spikes were horrible, but the result is fantastic (in my opinion) and I was constantly looking forward to seeing it mounted on the gun. I hope that I did not miss any details as my eye sight is not was it were and it is difficult to see if all field are painted or not. Not hat it will be seen but I know...

Next up is the power claw... 

Marneus Calgar

After suffering almost a month of restricted use of my right arm I am now slowly starting use it again. That also means that I can start painting again. As a restart of the hobby activities I decided to do a quick, ultra smurf job as this paint scheme is almost pure dry-brush and does not require any real fancy painting. I couple of months back I bought Marneus Calgar in his primaris form, including two body guards. The model is as perusal these days highly detailed and comes in a number of pieces. So the first thing to do was to determine how much I could assemble before painting, Marneus was pretty straight forward. Body without arms and back pack worked fine. For the body guards the cape became a problem. Either I had to build them completely or I would get a joint in the cape. If I built them completely I could not access the front of the model due to the sword and shield. In the end I opted to paint it in parts and hope that the final joint in the cape was not to bad. I glued the sword arm to the cape on one side and left the body and the shield arm free. One I hade painted the inside of the cape and the body I assembled the parts. It almost worked, but on one of the models the arm slipped during curing and a large gap appeared...

All in all I am happy with the result. I might go back and redo the gold as the way I did it was not the same as I usually do it and it turned out a bit dull and greenish.

Well, we will see if it gets done or not. At least I am now feeling good enough to continue on Varangian and finish him of, hope fully in a not to distant future.

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.