Dark Angels - Ravenwing Black Knights and bikes - TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer on my remaining #Ravenwing Black Knights and bikes. These took a really long time to get over the line and a bit longer still to get the pics taken so I may have finished them in January.

Despite convincing myself that black isn't that difficult to paint I can't getaway from the fact I just don't want to paint it. Difficult - no, boring/tedious - yes

And there were additional decisions, like the winged sword colours on the robed Black Knights. I went with red, as I;d done that on others and they'd match. But, I never liked it - so the best of a bad job.

The molten lava sword wasn't quite as good as the Talonmaster, but with time I've come to be satisfied with them rather than the slight disappointment I originally felt.

I've still got a few robed riders and bits from my Ravenwing Command sprue to make a few more Black Knights, just short on bikes. And here was me thinking my Ravenwing was done!

But with a load of upgrade bits, Corvus Hammers and Plasma Pistols for conversions some cheap bikes will get me another three Knights if I so choose.

The two bikers to join the odd one I did with my #DreadTober pledge.

Here are the 3 together.

And with my Primaris Chaplain on bike for a cool 'Kill Team' shot.

Some closer pics to get a better look at them.

At least I managed to get the re head lamp glow to be a little more to my liking.

And with that a GREAT Big RUSTY Stamp of Approval. White background pics to follow.

Dark Angels - Deathwing Knights and Terminators - BIG BUILD TO DONE!

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been building models as part of my BIG BUILD. I first put my 'remaining Deathwing Terminators' on my 2016/17 BIG BUILD TO DO LIST. Lets just process that for a minute - I planned to BUILD these in 2016 and it's taken 7 years just to fit them into my build schedule! To be fair it took my 5 years to paint the first 5 Deathwing Knights, and I was somewhat traumatised by the process. This second set was bought at the same time, the Dark Vengeance expansion box had 2 sets of Knights and no Ravenwing. It's a little annoying that there isn't an extra Mace of Absolution and you're forced to run a flail, when a unit of 10 limits it to one flail only,. Nevermind, I'm not likely to play them anyway!

Now this is a fun kitbash of sorts. There's a mix of standard plastic Terminators, Dark Vengeance plastics, Veteran upgrade sprue and parts from the command/Knight upgrade sprue. 

When I get round to priming/basing them I'll fill in all the details but feel free to see what you can spot.

And a few more - an Apothecary, a Deathwing Champion and Flamer [in case I ever play Space Hulk]. The champion was a Forgeworld Red Scorpion Carab Culln I ended up with from a trade year's back. I cut all the Scorpion motifs off and thought he'd look great holding that Halberd on high in a pose I think his arms are physically incapable of achieving!😂 

I have a couple more torsos and legs but can't seem to find the motivation to finish them off, as I think I need to magnetise Cyclone Missile Launchers on them. 13 is far too many for me to do at once anyway. With the basing sand added they're now ready to be primed when the weather is a bit better. I'll do all the basing and no doubt they'll sit on the shelf for another few years, but who knows... Here's the Great Big Big Build RUSTY Stamp of Approval for the build.

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Sammael Custodes Jetbike conversion

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity having finished my Ravenwing I somehow thought I should do more Ravenwing! So I've been converting my own Sammael on Jetbike out of a Custodes Jetbike, using Chamber42's awesome tutorial. I managed to pick up a Dawneagle jetbike for just £12.60 on ebay and I had most of the other parts to make a basic upgrade but I went all out bling and got a Ravenwing Command Squad sprue for £18. Now, that may put this at £30.60, not much different than the official model, so why bother? The Command Squad sprue comes with another Black Knight bike, Plasma Talons, Grenade Launcher, two Corvus Hammers and various other bits. Should I get just a cheap bike or two I could have another two or three Black Knights for very little, as well as Sammael. So, it's cost effective in the end.

As this is the Plasma Cannon rather than the Assault Cannons of the Talonmaster conversion I decided not to do an underslung Cannon and instead have it mounted in the chassis similar to a Scimitar pattern Heresy Jetbike. I went looking for the Forgeworld link for these when I started writing this post and couldn't find them, a couple of days later they're announced in plastic!

The Plasma Cannon is from the Deathwing Terminator Command sprue, so could have been underslung with ease but I wanted a more streamlined profile, so a bit of cutting and digging was needed to fit this in.

Here's the underneath where I had to remove the front bit of the central piece to fit the cannon.

I have a small metal ruler that I aligned with the three grav nodes to score along the base. I cut out most of it, but you can still see the score marks and the piece with a central node I glued back in to close the gap. It's pretty messy so I've got to clean it up yet. 

I don't know if you could have just cut the small piece out that needs to be removed to fit the Plasma Cannon, without taking the piece I returned but it might be worth trying.

Mold lines need cleaning. You can also see that the bottom part, where it joins the 45º lower left gun cowling has started to separate. Not sure why but it'll be fixed. Fitting the Storm Bolter in the gun cowl will be a challenge. It comes as a Hurricane Bolter [3 guns] I can remove one which will make it a Storm Bolter and allow it to fit better because the Cannon currently resides where that third lower gun sits. There's some fettling to do that's for sure.

I've got my rider and extra bits to try and fit in the next update but that's in the post...

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Black Knights and bikes

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer I have, so much so I haven't been keeping track of my progress - both in pictures and subsequently the blog. So, it's just a quick pick/post to move things along.

As you can see above I powered through these to the extent they're even based. Plasma was all done and some molten metal power swords that aren't as good as the Talonmaster's but I got them done so I'm moving on. TO DONE! pics still to be taken but they will be forthcoming eventually.

#DreadTober - Dark Angels - Ravenwing Attack Bikes, bikes and Primaris Chaplain - White Pics

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity with DreadTober TO DONE! my Ravenwing are need their white pics to finish them off. I also need to take some of my Death Guard pics again but I'll get to them when I can find time. There's a lot of them so I may not have too much commentary but some of the close-up images will reveal details I've mentioned in the previous posts.

I did enjoy having a small bit of resin sprue, that I cut into pieces to make the three bricks. The rest of the Ravenwing bases have lots of bricks and urban rubble and thought this might help tie them together.

 

 

Here's where I was disappointed. Frosting is the natural enemy of any hobbyist. I've been an advocate of Army Painter brush on Anti-shine for years but it is still not perfect. Luckily I did all the bases separately and it was the last drops of the bottle that clearly had too much matting agent which caused this. A sepia wash might solve this but for the moment I'm  just going to pretend it never happened.

You should be able to see in the close-ups where some black shading would have helped to blend the Incubi Darkness and Dark Reaper highlights. The steps are very defined and some blending of the two would have made that better. As I say it doesn't stand out too much from a distance so I can live with it.

The lone biker.

Close up  of the Freehand of his company number. Also, I always feel like I struggle painting moulded skulls. I don't know what it is but I never feel happy with the result. Which, if you think about Warhammer is a real issue.

Primaris Chaplain on bike.

The Ravenwing decal was from the Indomitus box. AP Strong Tone wash with some white highlights made it look less like a decal.

It reveals so many issues in close up but I like it nonetheless.

Now, the 5 remaining bike to do...