Dark Angels - Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer - TO DONE! [Red Pics]

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on my Dark Angels Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer and it is TO DONE!

Oh boy, this has been a challenge. It was roughly a year ago that I picked this back up with the plan to finish it. I felt motivated and confident.

Then the reality kicked it and it was easy to set it aside to find other things to focus on. It's come together brilliantly in the end though.

There's an irony that I painted over the original green doors - it was basecoated in bone, red for the weapons and green for the doors, although that was an overspray of a Blood Angels base. But now I remove all the green it could have benefitted from a little green, to match my Deathwing Knights - see later pics.

The right quartered heraldry was and addition, as was the number 1. I could have done that as a decal but I freehanded the lot. I think it tapers a bit towards the bottom, the scuff marks don't help to dissuade from the illusion but I'm still quite chuffed with the result.

As you'll know by now, the custom decals were an experiment. I felt the top of the tracks were too plain and thought I'd give them a shot. The process was deeply flawed, with the decal paper jamming in the printer, but luckily I had sufficient success to get some viable decals and they were applied SO successfully.

 If I'm honest, the top is now SUPER-BUSY compared to the SUPER-PLAIN. But it's better with, than without.

 

It's pretty cool model in the end. Quite the centrepiece, even if they're a bit rubbish.

Now this could be it's purpose - delivering the Deathwing Knights and you can see how just a small amount of green on tank would have linked it a bit more with the Knights.

I do have another 5 Knights to make up at some point. It would be nice to have all my terminators done. 

I don't think I could field a mono Deathwing army, but the 15 or so terminators I still have to build/paint would look pretty cool.

Chances are I never will field them, playing Dark Angels just feels far too complex for me to get the best out of them. I still need the Space Marine Codex and the Dark Angel Codex Supplement - too many rules for my old brain.

At least the Tyranid Codex is pretty simple and self-contained. 

Imperial Knights too are easier to play than other armies, it's just the more competitive ones are more complex to play.

There we go and here's the Great Big Granite Stamp of Approval - TO DONE! 

Dark Angels - Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer - Decals & dust

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I'm #paintingwarhammer on my Dark Angels Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer. Mistakes were made... My Xerox Laser Printer did not like the decal paper!

Luckily, I filled half the sheet with duplicate scripts and numbers and those at the top, above the wrecked ones, although slightly creased, were usable. I hoped that once they were floated off the backing paper all those ripples would disappear.

 

And I was right! The gloss varnish really helped blend the decal in. I did need to scrap one big number 1, as the tail got folded underneath and was irretrievable. The 1 was printed only as an outline, all that black was filled in with paint afterwards 😎 

 

The script came out really well though and I'm absolutely overjoyed how I got to blend it in, with no sign of the dreaded decal halo. Where possible I try to avoid straight edges and corners as your eye is drawn to those anyway. The decal paper itself helped because it was very thin, almost like a slightly thicker clingfilm in a way, hence why I had to scrap the first big 1. So, the fiddliness of application is outweighed by the supreme finish.

 

 I also added the AdMech banner decal from the Imperial Knight sheet. I don't know why it felt like it needed something. I some handwritten script might have been nice here instead, but nevermind. I also applied a coat of Lahmian Medium over the decals. I am going to highlight the black in some places, that may be a mistake but OCD demands I do it.

The Deathwing symbol also needs some unnecessary highlights and shading. 

I'm really pleased with how it looks. You may also spot I started changing the hatch lenses to green.

And a very subtle highlight on the 1, using Incubi Darkness. I don't know what possesses me sometimes. When I apply the matt varnish sometimes you can see the uneven matting agent instead of it being pure flat black. Here I've applied the highlight in such a way as to replicate it. Now of course I could go back in and paint it all black, but I fear it'll just add texture to it and make it worse. Hatch lenses have also been highlighted.

The Deathwing symbol is a little bit better. I also added some tiny highlights on the illuminated capital H. Incredibly subtle but really helps lift that bevelled effect in the letter. You'll see it better on the TO DONE pics.

And here we go with weathering. As with everything I do this required significant internal debate. Despite already having my Ravenwing with weathering powders to simulate the red planet dust of Ferron Proxima kicked up I feared this would look like rust. But technically it should, as Ferron Proxima is essentially just a giant planet of rust powder. So I have a precedent that works and still debated doing this, but it looks great.

 

I didn't go overboard on the bottom, just enough to give a taste of the orange.

This is of course pre-varnish and some of it will disperse once it's covered. I may add in some extra Vallejo Rust Model Wash & powder in some of those exposed footwells. The tracks themselves could do with more, but they'll definitely need extra varnish as they'll be where the most game wear takes place. I also don't want powder smudges left on other people's gaming table [should I ever game again!].

After the varnish, just some gloss on the lenses, I will not be using Tamiya Clear on all of them, on the advice of commenters. I may be a little selective, the hatch lenses and the lights - yes, targeting lenses - no. And then it is TO DONE!

Dark Angels - Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer - Decal prep

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I'm still #paintingwarhammer on my Dark Angels Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer. I know I said it would be a while before an update, I suppose it has, but I've been prepping the decals. But, before that i actually painted one of the company numbers on the front wing, plus some paint scuffs. It's not too bad for freehand.

Here's the Photoshop mock-up again - slimmer, taller but I think I did an OK job, considering.

I was preparing the numeral on top too and the litany. I got confirmation this is the correct orientation from Nick Bayton.

I stretched the number 1 even more for the top down view, but viewing at an angle will foreshorten it. I also added the Deathwing symbol to the litany.

I did a mock-up of the track guards to try to work out what size would fit in the space available. This meant the litany could be scaled to fit 15mm wide. This is much better than the original 12mm version I started with. A 25% increase in scale really helps and the mock-up also allowed me to see that the Deathwing symbol just needed to be nudged off-centre due to the trapezium shaped light mount. It will also help me position the decals as there are points of reference on the mock-up I can use to align them.

I'll make these available as a .pdf should anyone want them

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Black Knights - Big Build TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been converting some Ravenwing bikers into Ravenwing Black Knights, similar to what I did 4 years ago.

These are just the basic bikes, but with a Ravenwing upgrade sprue and some of the extra robed figures I was able to kit three bikes out as slightly more 'fancy' than the standard bikers.

Obviously the Plasma Talons are the hard part of the conversion. These are achieved using extra Plasma Pistols. I don't even worry about the bolter 'magazine' [or the fact those two pistols are actually slightly different sizes]. When it's painted and slightly canted over to the side it will hardly be noticeable.

I had one spare Corvus Hammer, shame I couldn't show it off a bit more in its pose. However, having sticky out bits is a recipe for it snapping off or not fitting in a figure case. I was actually going to mount back pack decorations on all three but scotched the idea for this very reason.

I also press-molded a Corvus Hammer. It is rough as hell, but I'm hoping paint will cover up some of the deficiencies. For some reason I thought as this one could be kept separate it would be easier to paint. We'll see if my theory is right

 

His bike, plus the Space Wolf Plasma Pistols, which look vaguely chaotic with their spikes. It's funny how that context is changed from the savage animalism of the Space Wolves, to the traitorous Fallen of the Dark Angels.

Anyway, I get Big Build Great Big Granite Base Stamp of Approval for this and I've some more Ravenwing to add soon.

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Talonmaster - basecolours

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity Alongside my Macragge Tactical Squad I've been #paintingwarhammer on my Ravenwing Talonmaster. The metals were finished in conjunction, that Army Painter Strong Tone taking that bronze to a proper aged look in places.

Perhaps too much? But the blessed verdigris will obfuscate things a bit - hide issues, fill in discrepancies. It's a great leveller, I'm not even too proud to suggest it isn't a crutch. But it is more than just that. It adds as well as hides for so little effort.

That relic banner will be a constant annoyance, I have no doubt. It's very fragile and precarious, I suspect it'll snap off repeatedly. I'll have to find a gentle way to transport it. All of the black has been recovered, reds and I'm going to work on the cockpit next.

The irony of doing this, is I wish I was doing more of them. I really like the little compactness of them - the new speeders are just too big. Saying that I'm certain to do more than just this one would probably kill my motivation dead.

What I could do is get those Ravenwing attack bikes ready to prime and then they could waiting in the wings should I still have a Ravenwing itch once this is complete.

It does annoy me that I tried really hard to keep this model as tight as possible, to prevent gaps in the kit, but those angled edges around the cockpit are awful! I should have tried a little harder to smooth them over...

I think I'm feeling the urge to try and rectify that somehow, even if it is a step back I should be happier with the finish before I go on and paint the rest of the model. We'll see.