Deathwing Progress 2

So right when I was coming up on the anniversary of the blog and feeling the least motivated to actually do any painting I suddenly had a flurry of activity only for it to blow as I once again reached a 'painters block'. I did all the antique bronze and then applied my verdigris washes to the Deathwing and I think they came out awesome, but they now don't fit the look of the rest of the army, in particular the Tactical squad. Anyway these pics show how the verdigris looks, under natural light and I even attempted some glow effects on the eye lenses.

I'm not entirely convinced with my efforts on the Crux Terminatus. The Ferron Proxima stone effect doesn't look like stone, it's particularly reminiscent of my old Empire army figures, not sure how to tone it down or whether some drybrushing might make it more dusty, therefore more stone-like...

The other issue is battle damage, which I want to do, but it's going to be tough as I don't want to put silver in any scratches. I want perhaps black to show through as the fluff suggests that underneath all the Bonewhite there's black but what's underneath that? Again a decision that is choking any further progress.

And here lies the other side of the equation. The antique brass here is great, I don't want to touch it but it looks odd next to the Deathwing, although the verdigris being greenish does tie in with the tac squad colouring I wouldn't want their brass to have this effect. The same brasses are on the drop pod and dreadnought. Too much thought is stifling this whole project, no wonder I haven't touched it in weeks.

 The sad thing is that aside from the battle damage, targeting lenses, chapter markings and bases I think these are nearly done. There's not a whole lot left to finish the Deathwing off which I know would be a real boost to my motivation. The Tac squad isn't too far behind either. The fact is my priorities are fixed for the next few months but come April I may well be spending a lot more time and effort getting these things done but any little bit I can do between now and then will just make things go smoother.

The art of 40k - Yet more Gary Harrod

OK, look when I started this 'art of 40k' section I hadn't planned on getting stuck on Mr. Harrod, I don't owe him money/represent him/want his children. It's just there seemed very little artwork online and as times gone by I keep stumbling across more and more of his work I've missed/forgotten that I've rediscovered and I need to share before I can move onto the next artist. These pics were rediscovered in my copy of the 40k Compendium.

Oh WOW! How could I forget this beauty, the original Deimos Pattern Rhino and this pic makes a mockery of the current design. Sure the central transport area is disproportionate to the acutal model, but have you ever seen a picture that quite captures the feel of an armored transport vehicle about turn you into spatula fodder?

An original 'Land's Speeder' and it seems there was less use of an anti-gravity plate on the bottom and more a vectored jet to keep it skimming above the ground in Rogue Trader days.

Next we have an original jet bike with an extremely early mark armored Space Marine, check out the pipes going into his 'beaky' helm. Practically AdMech in design and I can't make out the insignia on his shoulder, anyone? Also of note is the rocket homing in on the bike. There's a real sense of activity and motion in this pic, love it. Lastly, some Orks, not much to say but I really like the way the picture breaks out of the frame with the Stormboyz helm poking out the top.

In an attempt to move things on I'll drop a taster of my next favorite 40k artist, a no-prize if you can guess. Not sure how to progress with it though as I've noticed my scanning destroys the subtle pencil work and I think showing these pieces this way won't do them justice, still guess away

New Ferron Proxima

As promised I finally got around to producing a larger print out of my Ferron Proxima Battle mat. Thankfully scaling the image to the new table size of 150 x 90cm [a 5' x 3' table!] which translates to 127% more width and 118% more length didn't degrade the image. However, I did find the output varied from our plotter. Now I think I recall something similar happening first time around but as you can see below I ended up with two versions, one that has significantly more darker detail and thother which is equally vibrant but without all the lowlights. This time around I think we will be suing the high contrast version for gaiming but I did print and laminate both.

Here's another shot so you can see how much detail has suddenly been picked out.

And again, by laying them on top of eath other you can get a decent comparrison, particualarly in the large crack in ground and the shadowy area below the pale triangular shape.

And a nice shot to end on

Land Raider and Rhino History

I was looking at BoLS the other day and the lead story was a new Forgeworld Land Raider Armoured Proteus

It's a beautiful little beast but the accompanying YouTube video was also cool for those of us with a penchant for GW history and some interesting back story on the modelling of these iconic vehicles.

Now without wishing to look like I just cribbed someone else's news, here's a reminder of my particular interest in these fellas:

Which made me realise a massive omission from the blog, my original Land Raider Proteus has never been photographed, nor has the second Deimos Pattern Rhino, so here's a couple of phone shots, I'll photograph them better some other time.

Deimos Pattern Rhino with Dark Angel upgrades and some 'spotlights' on the front made from Space Crusade bits...

New Forgeworld goodies

New from Forgeworld:

CONTEMPTOR PATTERN AUTOCANNON

Awesome for Mortis Dreads but £7.50 each? I know that's the price of a Dreadnought weapon but it's a shame they aren't more affordable. Still, they're better looking than the other standard Dreadnought Autocannons so on balance they're good value

MINOTAURS SHOULDER PADS

MINOTAURS TERMINATOR SHOULDER PADS

And finally...

GRAIA PATTERN RAPIER LASER DESTROYER

The Rapier Laser Destroyer was one of the first 40k models that came into our house, in fact it was not my figure but my brothers, which I painted. I'm pretty sure I have the chassis knocking around in a bitz box somewhere though the tracks and lasers are probably long gone. I'm not entirely convinced by this sculpt. I think if you were going to make the trapezoidal shape less regular which, is the right thing to do given the current anachronistic Imperial design, then although this is the right direction it needed to be a little more exaggerated. As it is it almost makes sense!

Terrain is everything - Can't see the wood for the trees

I mentioned in April my concerns over trees and after a 12 month wait I finally got to nip back to Dobbies, our local garden centre [and craft shop] to pick up a pack of their model Christmas Trees. These are really popular in the USA for 40k. I've seen loads of battle reports that feature these particular festive flora.

That's the set you get, 21 pieces from a company called Lemax for £13 which I think is good value. Clearly there's at least two that are just a bit too big, they're the same size as my 40k outpost that got bigger! but great line of sight blockers for a Trygon!

Of course there's one big issue with these trees, the seasonal kind. Ferron Proxima is not known for it's snow and chlorophyll as a substance does not exist in it's standard green as evidenced by the Ferron Bindweed. So initially I will be undercoating them all in Red Oxide primer and will be then repainting them in shades of yellow.

More to follow...

Apocalypse - Out

...finally

For some silly reason we ran the Prime at the Librarian squad and because he doesn't have fleet wasn't able to assault them. Stupid really, he only got 3" and didn't need them to make the assault but we abided the decision just because it was a valuable lesson. Thankfully we didn't need him as the Termagants managed to Poison the remaining Blood Angels and win the day, but non of the objectives.

Over on the other side, the Broodlord was squished, I think one weapon had been destroyed on the dread but it moved off in search of the Trygon. Nothing much happened apart from a few more of the other Blood Angels from the Rhino being picked off, though by warrior fire or Necron gauss I don't recall.

So my thoughts? We had a lot of fun. The last Apocalypse battle we went to was very hectic and the age range was significantly lower which made things more like herding cats. This time there was a lot of experience, maybe too much because we were often bemused by what was going on. Our little corner was pretty much self-contained. But, with so many taking part it was also a bit frustrating to suddenly have swathes of figures wiped off the board without much chance to use them or retaliate. For the most part we faced a squad of five marines, with a Librarian and they pretty much squashed the entire 'nid force flat! Maybe this is how most current games play, perhaps we're still not experienced enough about this to expect that the army you spent hours compiling doesn't get to do half the things you plan on it doing, I don't know. Maybe it's a peculiarity of Apocalypse, again I don't know. Don't get me wrong, it's not sour grapes. Neither my son nor I care whether we win or lose - there's nothing more fun than a spectacular loss but somehow we didn't even get that out of the poor Hormogaunts for instance. And deep-striking was pointless as we only had a couple of turns each and the wee-little Rippers never even got to gnash their teeth.

Saying that though we did have a lot of figures left and in another turn I think the Trygon would have squashed the dread, the Termagants could have captured the objectives and the Warriors would have mopped up anything else knocking about so we were well placed for further battle. Overall we enjoyed ourselves immensely and everyone was super nice and made us feel welcome but I was reminded of how much more fun it is to have a proper 'crew', a group of friends you can banter with and really enjoy the games. I may have some more to say on this in a future post, as a wise-man once said "things are afoot at the Circle K"