Dark Angels - Deathwing Knights - TO DONE! Red pics

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've finally finished #paintingwarhammer Dark Angel Deathwing Knights. I originally got these in June 2015 at Blog Wars 9 and if you follow the link you'll find my gaming crew gave me the vouchers towards it for my 40th birthday!

I then discovered it had 2 sets of Deathwing Knights [oh joy, another 5 still to paint] but no Ravenwing.

Luckily the legendary Games Workshop customer service meant they sent me the Ravenwing Command Squad separately.

So, it's been a long time coming, but I could say that about a lot of my projects. 

But these have always been a challenge with loads of detail the required decisions, which always cause delay. 

Add in metallics and other projects they just got pushed back and pushed back.

Even when I committed all this time and effort to getting them done I feel I've had to make compromises.

I'm not happy I didn't paint the ropes and knife scabbards the same maroon red of my other Deathwing - always check your schemes first.

Red purity seals instead purple feels inconsistent too.

Skin-tones are also one dimensional, I only base-coated, shaded and highlighted once. I didn't even do any eyes - I tried but it went wrong so just gave up.

But the hoods make it difficult and they should be shadowed, I mean this guy doesn't even have any eyes!

I wanted to do orange glow effects on the censer holes in the maces too, but I chickened out, I thought it'd go horribly wrong and just wanted them done.

\But none of that matters because, as I look at these pics I realise they look bloomin' cool!

All of those issues don't detract from what I've achieved, no one else will know and should I ever be inclined I can always fix them by painting the elements I'm unhappy with.

When I ever get round to the next set of Knights I can make those calls, and either match these up or leave them subtly different so it's two identifiable squads - if that would be helpful - do people ever take two min squads over one max? 

Anyway, they look great, I've got some pics against a white background coming up next. hope you like what I did and enjoy some of the more PC desktop orientated shots above

Here's my Big Galactic Stamp of Approval for getting these done!

Dark Angels - Deathwing Knights - GREENS and stuff!

Afternoon #warmongers and I am still #paintingwarhammer Dark Angel Deathwing Knights. It's felt like quite a chore to be honest, and I know it's advisable when it stops being fun to stop but these NEED to be done and sometimes it's worth pushing through.

The green in particular didn't feel up to the standards |I set myself.

The Orkhide Shade highlight did not go on well and my Valejo Goblin wasn't great either. I tried some additional glaces to smooth things together.

And then went back in with some more black to shade things further.

I think I even used a black wash and some of my Army Painter Quickshades are coming out glossy [well I never really shake them so that could be my fault].

But I'm not bemoaning that fact as I know my Anti Shine varnish will cover up any matt/gloss discrepancies.

So although it was quite a challenge to get to this point and I was close to chucking it all in I think I've just about salvaged it to a standard I'm happy with.

And my odd 2 Terminators also got brought up to speed too.

I went back and painted the skull on the base grey, as I wanted a thoroughly bleached white skull effect. I mean I've had red Genestealer skulls on bases and now a white one and my Old One Eye skull is carbon black. I've never reallyu settled on anything that I'm 100% happy with, maybe the red one still has Stealer flesh on it while this has been picked clean and OOE's is black because, well he's OOE, who knows how he was gene-spliced to keep alive!

Anyway, verdigris next and we know how well that goes...

Oh, and they got featured on the Hobby Roundup on Warhammer TV as well, unfinished! Which is great but also a little sad because they will be better at the end...

Dark Angels - Deathwing Knights - BONE 2.0

Afternoon #warmongers and I am still #paintingwarhammer Dark Angel Deathwing Knights. I am persevering and the second lot of bone highlights have been done.

Again I have a pot of 50:50 mix of white and Bonewhite that doesn't seem to run out, although it is getting a bit gunky in the bottom now.

I managed to put on a single drop of paint onto my Pringle's mini-palette and a drop of Instar Water+ [that came free with my order, and will no doubt pay off to Instar]. I then stippled the mix on to get a textured blend, although clearly not quite as effective as I'd hoped in places.

I've no idea what Water+ actually does, it did make the paint more fluid, but without thinning it too much so the paint broke down. There were some areas where it seeped into the recesses, which I'll have to fix, but it was handy to have.

There may be some pure white spot highlights I'll do on these too.

The bone is definitely working, it's not perfect and not quite the stippling I hoped for but it's much more than I had hoped for after the washes set me back.

Knowing when to accept a model, even when it doesn't quite meet expectations is a lessone we all need to learn I think.

Green's still need doing here, although that didn't quite work out as I expected on some of the others, hence why I hadn't done this one.

But again it's being patient with yourself, not too critical. I'm trusting that some additional bits will help to pull these together.

Alongside finished the greens, skin, verdigris, tribal stripes and lenses they should be busy enough that anomalies in the bone may be less noticeable.

Then again, looking at the shading on the shoulder pad - it looks odd, but the viewing angle will normally be higher than this and I'm sure it'll make more sense.

I really need to decide what I'm doing for the Genestealer skull, perhaps need to go white on this instead of bone, even though my nids have red faces - but that's when they have skin over the skull...

This might just have the best chance for the verdigris to look cool on those head wings.

Think the white purity seal ribbons/parchment will be the best option here. If I wash them like I've previously done they may become completely lost.

I'll perhaps know better when I've done the script on them. Not to mention pick out the debris on the base.

Last we have my old skool Grey Knight terminator that has ha some bone highlights done. He's mostly up-to-date, although I don;t know if those red claws are working.

I actually have to do all the metallics on the back here. Most of the bone was done back in the 90's on a base of yellow, with a very poor black ink wash. Then I used brown paint in places, it was really only the right shoulder pad that had to be done, hence the difference in how they've been shaded [well the left one isn't...]

A mish-mash of old and new styles of how I paint there and once again compromises on what I want. The most frustrating thing about all these is that I will be super-elated when I complete them, but that feeling will last for around 24 hours while my frustrations and disappointments have been going on for months [years even]. That's why it's an addiction, most of the time it's suffering to meet your own standards and then you get that 'hit' after completion and each time it's harder and harder to achieve and lasts shorter and shorter. 

Which is why I need to be grateful that I will complete them, because the fact they are done is something else, something different. You can't take away the achievement, even if the high fades. The miniatures remain and when this figure - over 25 years old is done that's one hell of an achievement, regardless of finish...

'nids part 275 - Tyranid Warrior Termagants, Rippers - MOAR basecoats and shades

Afternoon #warmongers and I've been #paintingwarhammer on those Tyranid models. I was getting all the chitin plates basecoated. The 5 Devgaunts, some made from Hormagaunt 'chassis'.

The Rippers

The lone Warrior

The Hive Guard

And I got the wash done as well. With the motivational challenge of my Deathwing Knights it is always handy to have something simple but with significant impact to a model up your sleeve. 

Washing all these 'nids, alongside all the metallic edging for my Adeptus Titanicus titans gave me a huge hit of progress on a lot of models. It also put me in a position where these can be moved onto the next stage as and when I feel overwhelmed by the Deathwing.

It was however not without issue. I had been using my Valejo sepia wash, mixing in some Instar Water+ to thin it down as I'd got the same crusty deposit in past applications as I did with Seraphim Sepia.

It didn't quite solve the problem, as you can see on the head crest it's still there, but not as bad as Seraphim Sepia. You would expect me to be livid at this point but as I'm running a Strong Tone wash over the top of it I don't think this will be a problem in the end.

Hive Guard conversions got the same treatment.

And there were deposits int he crevices also. I think it's the heavily recessed areas where the wash pools.

Some have suggested it's the separation of the matting agent, who knows?

I quickly remembered to wash these two in Soft Tone as well.

You can see that there was not the same problem with the Army Painter washes.

The Valejo wash does describe itself as a dipping wash so perhaps applying it with a brush is not the best application. Maybe you treat it the same way as an Army Painter Quickshade, although I believe they're much thicker. Doesn't really matter though, I'll just keep on painting.