Something Rotten This Way Comes…

By which I mean, Plague Marines!  As with most of my new projects, I tend to start off with a one or two (in this case, three) test models to help dial in my proposed paint scheme.  Fortunately as I’ve recently painted up a decent amount of Nurgle Daemons this was fairly straightforward.

Rather than using some of my two sets of Dark Imperium Death Guard, I elected to purchase a box of their Easy Build cousins.  Here’s how I got on.

Also, woo Miniature Monday!  First time I’ve posted something in ages.

Ravenwing Bike

Managed to get something done for #MinatureMonday for the first time in what seems like ages 🙂

Ideally I’d like to be further along with his two squad mates, but at least this chap’s ready for action.

Ravenwing Land Speeder

This week I decided to take a break from my Chaos Marines (yes, I will get back to my Warpsmith soon!) and get some more of my Dark Angels finished.

I guess at this point I should acknowledge that my Dark Angels are now a separate army and not an allied contingent for my Guard 😉

There is also a degree of method to my madness as I’ve a Taurox and three squads of Tempestus Scions still in their boxes and I wanted to be sure I could paint a predominantly black colour scheme before I started on them.

I suppose now I really should go back to my Warpsmith…

Chaos Space Marine Heldrake

It’s done! I started this in June but thanks to, ahem, quite an eventful five months it’s only now finished.

I really enjoyed working on this model, I think I’ll have to add a few more to my army in the near future 🙂

Dark Angels Rhino

Finished on time for Miniature Monday, who’d have thunk it!

Leman Russ Resurrection – Part 5 – Finished!

It’s done!  I’m really pleased with how this has turned out, and in time for Miniature Monday 🙂

 

And to show you again what it looked like before I got to work.

Mutated Marines

After seven months, a change of job and the purchase of a house, my Mutated Marines are finally finished!  I started this project back in July shortly after having my arse handed to me by contributor and friend of Ramblings from The Trenches, Tim Chant and his Corpse God bothering Imperial lackeys.  I built these really quickly as I love the process of customising miniatures, one of the reasons I play Chaos and will inevitably collect an Ork horde at some point.

Here’s what my mob looked like at the end of July last year after I’d applied the base coat.

And here’s what they look like now 🙂

Some (more or less in focus) individual shots.

I absolutely loved working on these, can’t wait to try something similar with the rumoured new plastic kits.

Getting Back Into The Groove: Warriors of Chaos

I am very pleased to report that, not only have I started painting again but I’ve actually managed to finish something, and in time for Miniature Monday too!

These Warriors of Chaos was part of my sWarmonger Secret Santa and I’m very glad they’re finally finished.

While I’m not intending to start a WoC army, I thought I’d paint them as if I were and since I love painting a a Khorne Berserkers I thought I’d replicate the scheme. Maybe after my Bretonnians are done I’ll revisit these guys as I do want to eventually collect an evil Warhammer Fantasy army.

Chaos Space Marine Hellbrute

After sitting half-converted on my desk, my army’s first Hellbrute is complete.

 

 

 

 

And, because I’m in the mood to show off, here’s a stock pick of what the kit is supposed to make.

 

 

It took me a while to file off all the Corpse God-bothering iconography but I had no idea how long it would take me to get the weapons right!  I went through at least five Imperial Guard autocannon barrels before getting the angles right and getting the Sentinel chainswords to fit onto the stump of the powerfist almost made me cry.  That said, I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out and I can’t wait to convert a few more!

Trenchmates – The Space Marine Stormtalon by Tim Chant

Welcome to the first Trenchmates article of 2013 and where better to start than where we left off with my good friend and long-suffering opponent Tim Chant who today writes about the most recent addition to his Space Marine army, the awesome Stormtalon.

The Space Marine Stormtalon Kit

I am sure, like many true sons of the Emperor, I was pleased to see the Stormtalon kit appearing on the shelves. I couldn’t resist picking one up from Dark Sphere in London while I was down there for work, but resisted the temptation to break the box open on the train North and assembled over the next couple of evenings. Although I’ve been gaming for a while and have built endless numbers of miniatures, I’m still very much a beginner when it comes to painting. I’m starting to enjoy it, though, and wanted to share my thoughts on building and painting this kit.

Construction

The kit was a real joy to put together, pretty straightforward and with little need to refer to the instructions. It’s a solid miniature, maybe a bit smaller than I was expecting, with a couple of flexible parts (the engine nacelles and the assault cannon mounting). The only really fiddly bit was getting the Techmarine pilot’s arms in the right place. I’d say the only bit you have to be careful with is the dorsal aerial array – I broke one while I was still painting! I left the engine nacelles unglued before painting.

Painting

As with the construction, this was really easy and a joy to paint. I painted the Techmarine pilot and interior of the cockpit during assembly. The pilot is painted in the livery of the Reaver Redemptor 3^rd Company, with a black helmet which will become the defining feature of this bike-heavy force (see my previous article about my own codex Chapter for more details of the colour scheme, although I’ve adjusted the helmet colour from bronze to black).

As I have a lot of miniatures requiring painting, and am not the most patient and skilled of painters, I like to try to find ways to speed up the painting process. I’d already experimented with the excellent Vallejo Army Painter sprays, which are coloured undercoats, and they really came into their own with this model. I taped over the clear plastic cockpit and used the Angel Green spray (which will be getting a lot of use when I paint my Dark Angels) on the tail sections and on the separate engine nacelles. I then taped the green sections over and sprayed the rest of the model with the Dragon Red. Both sprays gave a good even colour, and the tape (normal masking tape) gave sharp lines without any bleed between the colours.

The Dragon Red is about equivalent to the old Mechrite Red, which was the basecoat used for most of the Reavers. However, with the change of paints Mephiston Red is the closest shade but is a bit brighter than the Mechrite. The Vallejo Pure Red spray is the right shade, but I find doesn’t give the right coverage and is a bit too watery. I think in future I’ll spray with the Dragon Red and then give it a light covering of Pure Red. As it is, I filled in the gaps in the Dragon Red with Mephiston, then washed with Baal Red, and hand painted the missile pods with Caliban Green. The green areas were drybrushed with Lothern Green and washed black, and the red areas finished with a heavy drybrush of Tin Bitz (I’m really hoping there’s an equivalent paint in the new set) [Warplock Bronze is the closest in the GW range but it’s no Tin Bitz – John] as per the usual Reavers colour scheme. I used the Army Painter large drybrush, which has a broad, flat tip and gives a nice even tone.

I really struggled with the green shading of the colour scheme previously, as I didn’t want a plain dark green but wanted to distinguish from the Dark Angels, as I will be doing some Reavers entirely green. Before taking on the Stormtalon I finished a Rhino I’d been working on for a while, for which the green was a primary colour. I drybrushed with Lothern Green but found it much too light, particularly against the red trim, even after two green washes and a wash of Asurman Blue. At John’s suggestion I tried a black wash and am quite pleased with the distinct colour given – I just need to go back over a full battle company’s worth of Marines, a half dozen drop pods and five tanks to update the colours.

Detailing was pretty straightforward and done after the washes were complete. The missile tips are painted green in layers, to be nice and bright – this is the ‘warning’ colour my talented friend Elizabeth [she of Sexism in the Warhammer Worlds parts one and two] settled on when painting the majority of my Marine force. I removed the assault cannon mounting to paint it (it’s a flexible mount). On John’s advice, I drybrushed Boltgun Metal over corners to give it a weathering effect, and drybrushed black around the engine vents. A final step was to glue the nacelles in place, being careful not to glue the spar between them to allow them to be rotated.

I’m fairly pleased with the result. I did try to give it convincing re-entry burn marks on the tail and back of the wings, as I imagine it would enter the atmosphere belly first (just like ‘Serenity’!). These were achieved with a drybrush of dark brown, then a lighter brown, then black over the top. I’m not overly happy with how it turned out, I’ll need to work on that technique.

Gallery

Conclusion

I think if I do another Stormtalon (which is almost certain, I think I’d like three), I’ll paint the engines before assembling the nacelles, and paint the interface for the assault cannon mount and the side sponsons mounts before gluing. Aside from that, fairly happy with the approach and pleased with the result. It was surprisingly quick to paint as well – in total I think I spent about four hours on this (quick for me, anyway) [Quick for anyone, and far quicker than me! – John].

Many thanks to Tim for walking us thorough what is sure to be my Helldrake’s main course at some point in the future. In all serious, I think Tim’s effort is superb and I’d dearly love to find an excuse for my Heralds of Desolation to field one, maybe I’ll have to start that Imperial Fist army now…

If you’d like to contribute an article all the information you need can be found here.