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So I figure I'd start a blog for my new army. The last couple of weeks I had been telling myself "I will not buy Space Hulk. I will not buy Space Hulk!" I had been avoiding trying to find a new LGS since my favorite closed down. After following some of the threads I had assured myself there was no need for it. Then GW started doing call backs to get some more stock to fulfill their orders.

I thought I was in the clear so I went to a new shop to just browse around and check it out. To my wallet's dismay this retailer still had a couple copies of SpHulk sitting on the counter near the entrance. I tried to avoid it like my cat avoids the closet that has the vacuum. After a few minutes of walking around and checking out the tables and display armies (some pretty nice stuff), I decided to chat with the guy behind the counter.

Turns out he is the owner and a pretty cool dude. He actually based his store off of my original favorite, so it had a good feeling. I asked him about usual gaming nights, tournaments, and hours and such. He must have noticed me glancing at the Sphulk box because he asked me if I wanted to get a copy. I kept my resolve and told him I was good.

I wandered around for a few more minutes and looked at the paints. He had some reaper master brushes (my favorite, I haven't been able to find them locally yet) and sitting next to the paint rack was an open box with the red terminator models. I picked up the dual lightning claw model and thought that would make an awesome sergeant model.

At that instant I knew I was screwed.




My goal for this army is basically learn to highlight and get better table top units. Going for Level 3? I think its called. I will not be spraying these like I did my salamanders.

So now I have a new army in the works. So far I have

5 assault marines (repurposing them from previous army)
SM battleforce (traded for a stompa, Thanks Old Man Ultramarine)

After doing some research and building my army list I have some more stuff on order which should start showing up next week.
I went back to Knightfall Games and had him order me 3 Baal predators. He also had a blood angels dread that he hoarked the right CC weapon from but substituted it for a venerable assault canon.
I ordered 4 more rhinos from Neal at thewarstore along with some other parts needed to finish up a few units.
Ebayed a Furioso Dread, Corbulo, and Dante. (shameless Jawaballs list copy)

That is pretty much my whole army. Mech based Blood Angels.

So far I have converted the left CC arm with a heavy flamer mount and have it partially painted.
I'll get pics up after work.

Alright, so.... more to come.

Okay, so here are some pics of the first piece of my Blood Angels army.

This is Brother Marquis

I have magnetized his arms with 1/4" mags. I needed something stronger than the 1/8" to hold the heavy metal arms.

You can see the heavy flamer conversion under his right arm. This will actually be on the furioso dread that is on the way, but this is what I have to work with at the moment.
These are just the base coats. My next step is probably going to go in and do the black on the sarcophagus and start paying some more attention to the details.

Now I pose a question to you dakkaites. I was considering buying the FW death company and blood angels rhino door/front sets. Would it be too gaudy to do 4 rihnos with these doors? Or How many should I do?

I think on the next dread I will prime him white to make it easier to paint the red color.

Let me know what you think.

Nice, I'm going to soon be buying the Space Hulk set, cos my local Casey's Toyworld has 3 sets and they have been there for a while, so I can build my 1st Company Blood Angels for Apocalypse.

Onto the Dreadnought, good Flamer conversion (Note: Its on the left arm not the right arm). Get some pics up of the Death Company and Furosio when they get to your place.

I can totally relate to wondering around the store trying to convince yourself that you are not going to buy something when you know hard and true that you will. I think you could put custom doors on every model. I have a few but I would like to do everyone with a custom BA chapter markers.

General Stubbs wrote:(Note: Its on the left arm not the right arm)

Oh, durr. That's what I meant. I have been looking at him from the front too much. I have most of the details done now. Just need to highlight the armor. This will be my first attempt. I plan on using a blazing orange, then a BO, vomit brown 2:1 for the final highlight. Similar to the WD article.

@Jabbakahut
I think I will try some free handing on the doors to see how that goes. That way I can make each one custom and different.

Sounds like a massive amount of painting to get through good luck! I know the FW doors might seem ostentatious (as well as hideously expensive) but they look great. Come to think of i only needed three sets for my entire DH army....

will be watching your progress with interest

Alright! So I am pretty satisfied with how Marquis came out. I think it is safe to say he is 90% complete. I still have to go back and add transfers but I need to pick up some gloss varnish. This was my first attempt and actually highlighting and I learned some things I think I will do differently next time, such as doing the wash after the highlight instead of before to help blend them in with the base coat.

I don't know if it shows up in the photos but I tried a 3 color lens highlight. Most obvious is probably on the assault canon.

C&C is always appreciated.

Next on the list up to paint is a few SpHulk termies. They are primed and ready to go, but I probably wont be able to get to them until tomorrow night.

Hopefully I get most of my stuff this week. Will be a bunch of building tanks, hehe.

Looks good so far! and I do like the dread arm. I will say that I never find myself using more then 5 death company models so that many rhinos might be over kill. Its funny I just got back into the hobby hard my self and because of space hulk my mind on what chapter was made up.
anyhow I feel your pain paint wise. P.M. me with questions and I will hopefully be able to help ya
Good Luck!

Thanks Red.
I will have to post up an exact list later tomorrow of what the plan is as far as building and painting.

I haven't painted anything since the weekend. I got a package from thewarstore.com Yippee!! /happy dance

I have been building like mad today. I have all of the transports built and kitted they way I plan for my army set up.

One will be the DC transport, the one with the extra stormbolter is the tac rhino. The 3 others will be the assault squad rhinos.
oh, and I had an attack bike just sitting around so I figure it would make a nice addition. If you can make out the stuff on the table I still have a a Dec squad and adrop pod as well to build. (wink wink) Not sure if I will use the pod for the BAs at the moment though.

Currently for heavy weapons I have 4 HBs 2 laz canons that aren't part of an army yet (unpainted). How should I kit the Devs I still have to build. I was thinking 2 plasma 2 rockets and a MM(for my sallys)

Here is a shot of today's work.

Well, sadly, I don't have my preds yet. I spent most of the day stripping the models I got off ebay.

Corbulo was covered in solid red and about half a bottle of super glue. I had to clean him up something fierce. I also stripped the Furioso dread. I am going to do him up as a DC dread, all black and killy.

I wasn't paying attention when I had been painting the last dread. The flamer conversion was supposed to be for the furioso, so I had to repaint it black.

I will make some progress on the dreads tomorrow if the Baals don't show up.

Sorry, no pics today. Need to order a new camera battery =( (lipo crapped out and wont hold a charge)

These are looking great so far.

I had an idea for the Baal predator, instead of the current model, use a rhino and two of the punisher cannons from forgeworld for the valk conversions, those look amazing!

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/QUATERMASTERS_STORE_IMPERIAL_NAVY_45.html

midway down page...

MeanGreenStompa wrote:These are looking great so far.

I had an idea for the Baal predator, instead of the current model, use a rhino and two of the punisher cannons from forgeworld for the valk conversions, those look amazing!

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/QUATERMASTERS_STORE_IMPERIAL_NAVY_45.html

midway down page...

I like that idea.

Those punisher cannons are sweet. I saw a guy on B&C that did his own conversion of them.

I thought about doing something similar to this.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=178697

Long time since an update. I've been really busy with this fall term. I found some time over this Thanksgiving weekend to paint a bit. I started on my 10 man tac squad, have all the rhinos/predators base coated, and 15 assault marines (no pics yet). I got to what i would consider finished on a Terminator Chaplain.



I thought he was looking really great until I took the picture. When I look at it from 8-10 inches away I'm proud of it. When zooming in on the pic its more apparent that I still need a lot more practice.

Please, tell me what you like and don't like about him. Or any suggestions for improvement.

Thanks
Ben

I like him. Maybe wash down the white on the crozius so it matches the rest, and throw some highlights on the bolter. Other than that, well done. The armour highlights and scrollwork look particularly nice.

If you're trying for a GD award, you would need more work. But digital cameras and their resolution can easily make a good mini look poor. It sure would be a lot easier if I could zoom in in real life to really paint the details. I've actually fantasized about how good of a paint job one could do if you could just shrink yourself down to 28mm.

I love how his skull seems to glow

I suggest washing the white on his axe/staff thingie and then rehighlight it , looks kinda flat from here.. .

Gretar

Thanks for the tips. I tried to keep the white as clean as I could. I washed it once with black but I think I over brushed the white highlight. I was trying to keep it a pure white and have the bone white for his decorations.

I'm really going for GD per say. Mostly I'm just shooting for something I'd be proud to display in a case in my home. That, and continue to improve.
I just try to make each model better than the last, or try a different style/technique.

I'll go back and hit the crozius with the black was again and do a lighter highlight.

On a side note, I 'm stuck on my assault marines and the yellow helmet. I tried doing a test model with devlan mud wash, and also the purple (wich worked well) but it makes them too dirty looking for me. Any tips for yellow? or should i just drybrush some bleached bone over the straight yellow.

Highlight with sunburst.

Yellow = Gryphonne Sepia wash . Will make it slighly dirtier and dareken the yellow

Yeah, his skull-helmet looks terrific!!!

I think it a great focus for the mini!

Still, I agree with the other dakkaites: you should try and highlight a bit more the stormbolter, as well as try and match all "whitey" parts (Crozius, Aquila chestplate, ...)

Parchment's nice too!!!! Well done!!