#ArmiesOnParade2022

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity it's #ArmiesOnParade and after COVID scuppered last year's attempt to Parade in store at my nearest Warhammer in Liverpool I was desperate to get in there this year. I've a lot more pictures from the day of the other entries but this post is my entry.

The original plan was to Parade instore and then take pics during the week for the online entry. However, I had done a test layout on the Friday before and the photographs were not great. It took almost an hour to setup and when I was at Warhammer in Liverpool the lighting seemed decent enough to take my pics and it would saving unpacking, setting up and packing them away again at home. I also remembered how much my back suffered in 2021. Following on from the last 2 year's I did another video to showcase, it helps a bit more than the pics alone. 

So, you should recall the theme was my Dark Angel Ravenwing  hunting a newly arrived infection of Death Guard and diseased Poxwalkers on Ferron Proxima.

I was much happier with the arrangement after the Friday night test run.

I'd been quite downbeat after those pics, shown at the end of this post.

However, these are still lacking some detail, which I think is my own fault for switching my phone camera to wide angle setting. I got a much broader view, but at the expense of detail.

Luckily the video managed to capture a bit more of everything and there will always be my showcase pics here on the blog. 

As proud as I am of my Parade I know it is not going to win Armies On Parade and I'm absolutely fine with that, so higher quality pictures is not going to change anything.

My sole purpose is to be part of the event and to showcase my hobby, which was an absolute blast on the day.

The only real annoyance was I had not put my Land Speeders in the test display so did not realise I'd only packed 2 flyer bases, rather than the 4 I needed. It was an inconvenience and I was able to hook them onto my Sanctum Imperialis so they look somewhat levitating.

Unfortunately I think the Death Guard suffer most from the images. So much of the grunginess and slimy details don't show up.

The Ravenwing faired a little better, certainly an improvement over the Friday night pics where everything looked so drab and mediocre. Yes, even with a bright red board and backdrop it just looked boring to me.

Positioning could have been a little better but I was much happier than I expected to be.

This was the best shot of the Poxwalkers and my now obligatory assassin, although next year if I do blood bowl team she may not fit in.

The Administratum building looked awesome but maybe overshadowed by the Talonmaster and Dark Shroud.

And my Attack Bikes.

THE most important thing - my participation pin. As you'll know there is a competitive element but the store had not received anything other than these pins and some gold pins which they gave to the overall, AoS, 40k and Youngblood winners. They mentioned it had been very close and I came 2nd but I don't know if that was just the 40k or overall category. It didn't matter to me as if entrants had been able to vote I would have voted for the ones that did win, certainly in AoS, 40k and Youngbloods. Those entrants will be forthcoming...

These were the pics I did on the Friday evening, which I wasn't overly happy with but I share with for the record and so you can see why it was better to take pics instore.

#DreadTober Death Guard Foetid Bloat Drone - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity it's the second of DreadTober and I've been painting my Bloat Drone. I know this doesn't look too great that less than two weeks in I've completed my pledge but I'm pressured with so few days left until Armies on Parade. It'll be 8 days left today and I'll probably have one evening gaming so only 7 more days to do my Ravenwing Attack Bikes and tweak the Munitorum Containers.

The Containers could be considered part of the pledge alongside the attack bikes but still so much to do. Back to the Bloat Drone and it naturally progressed really quickly. I had a choice to make with the fly icon on the front - rust or Blessed Verdigris and I think I made the right choice with the verdigris.

I really think the turquoise works in this instance. I'd originally wanted to keep that just for my Dark Angels but in the end it adds a little more history and variety to the colour palette. It also helped with fly icon on the gun barrels too.

If I had more Bloat Drones I would consider a paler bladder/body material similar to the Poxwalkers. Although the angry red flesh is what I intended it doesn't feel it has enough depth or variety. I'd have liked a little more underpainting so we would get the illusion of what's going on under the skin. The red is just a little too opaque overall.

But really pleased with the results overall.

Although the eye lens might have been better in orange, the Tamiya Clear Red X-27 red is obviously used on the flesh immediately below. 

I think it adds a layer of confusion about what material the lens actually is. It's a minor annoyance as I really like the lens, it's just confusing to me.

And as revealed in the previous post I also finished these old skool Space Crusade Chaos Space Marines.

Although not 'dread' sized I just needed some more bodies for my Parade and these marines have been sat unpainted for 30+ years.

There's a surprising amount of red in there, almost Khornate on the middle one but I wanted all that panel detail to look like raw exposed flesh, like an open sore.

I;ve also been playing around with my camera apps as I took TO DONE! pics of my Poxwalkers and Camera360 made them so stylised they're almost unrecognisable from the actual models. I'll probably take the pics again.

But Camera360's Velvia filter really gets the high contrast saturated look of my red shots. I've found another app called Ektacam that will also replicate the Fuji Velvia filmstock, but it doesn't smooth out the detail as Camera360 does. Unfortunately it's an old app, not built for the current Android OS and has some incompatibility issues. Any time I try and change the camera ratio it stretches or squishes the image into the new dimensions rather than crops it. It's an annoyance but the results are more consistent for these shots.

So, two more GREAT Big RUSTY Stamp of Approval for the 2022/23 Hobby Season.

#DeathGuard #KillTeam Poxwalkers basecoats

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer Death Guard Kill Team. Technically my #NewYearNewArmy for #ArmiesOnParade. OK, I did take some pics of my Poxwalkers. Basecoat stage with some Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Red washes. The big bloater guy has had a set of highlights added to the Stonewall Grey base.

I've 16 Poxwalkers and although I'm not following my completely diverse skintones there is some subtle differences in this group. Half of them are Stonewall Grey flesh coloured, with half of them red washes.

The other 4 are green washes. I'm also trying to replicate my Free Radical Collective Genestealer Cult uniform scheme. 

These guys are being infected from the same population, in fact the second from the right has an almost Tyranid arm [maybe with a bit of Kroot thrown in]. I like the idea that Nurgle is trying to find some way to use the Tyranid DNA [I know they retconned them not having DNA, but whatever] as a viral infection -hence these mutants.

The other half of the group is basecoated with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. Split again with half shaded green and half shaded red. 

Obviously there is red here also but it's the underlying shading. I've then added a bit of Skeleton Bone as highlights to a couple of them [see if you can work out which ones] to see how that's going to work.

Here's my red shaded four, lots of beatsticks/hammers between them, which I hadn't noticed before.

That coat may prove challenging.

So, significant progress of some of the simple and necessary basic elements. I think it's the orange stuff next. Get all the uniforms done and move these along.

#DeathGuard #KillTeam Plague Marines - sessions 1 and 2

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer Death Guard Kill Team. Technically my #NewYearNewArmy for #ArmiesOnParade. Oh man time is short, AoP is round the corner, just 23 days days from today [although these pics are from a week or so back]. I've the Plague Marines, the Pox Walkers and the Foetid Bloat Drone to do for #DreadTober and trying to fit everything in and finding the time to write and publish blog posts about them is really challenging.

And that's not even mentioning the Ravenwing! So I got on with these Plague Marines, slapping on my Vallejo Game Effects Dry Rust, with some watered down Game Extra Opaque Heavy Red anywhere I thought was fleshy or sore.

The last tranche of Death Guard was 4 marines and here I am adding the Tallyman to the mix.

And a Lord of Contagion. I don't know whether this may end up too overwhelming. On top of that I am actually throwing some paint on the Pox Walkers simultaneously, although less judicious about the photo record for them [sorry].

With the base colours on it's time for my Colvin & Co 'Burnt Umber Artists' Acrylic'. Smooshed on and used as a wash in places it gives the best grimy effect.

I'll be adding more washes - red, sepia, purple, green, strong tone etc. Anything to add more tints, colours, splotches and filth.

I want the idea that these guys just live in filth. Their plague vessel just dripping with slime, gunk, and decaying muck with not a clean spot on board.

Then, trudging through this black tar field, they get even filthier. I must admit the Lord of Contagion has much more rust on him than I had been aware of. Add to that I have no idea if I can replicate the filthy purple cloak from my last tranche of marines and he's somewhat daunting.

Right, must crack on.