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Hi all, after looking through my old blog, there's too much stuff I've lost moving house, chopped up, or just gotten rid of. So here is my final blog, more streamlined, and with all photos in my Dakka gallery.
I'll be stripping most of my original models that I have left, and rebuilding several.

To start with, here's half of the 1st Tactical Squad I'll be doing, fresh from the chembath.


I was unhappy with Ultramarines as they were, I left them too long I guess, so a majority will be repainted as successor chapters, to try and keep me motivated. The above squad will be Imperius Reavers, and I have plans to add Scythes of the Emperor soon too.
The whole theme around my Imperial army is going to be Tyranid Hunters, led by my eternal favourite, Captain Fabian, of the Ultramarines 3rd company, and Chaplain Ortan Cassius.

Will post more tonight.

Good to see you back to blogging.

I'm also in the middle of a marine reboot... Original chapter out, White Scars in. What's your chem bath of choice? I've been using Simple Green on all metal, but I have lots of mixed metal, plastic, and green stuff to deal with.

Well, I have you to thank for that Nev, it's watching your blog that keeps me active, and your recent post about doing one army two different ways with your 30k and 40k, has inspired me to get going again.
MacPhail, I just use Dettol, works fine on plastics, not sure if it's available outside the UK though.

I did very little painting tonight, as the kids are deciding that sleep is not a necessity.


I've undercoated the combat squad, and very roughly painted half of three of them red.

I'm undecided as to what their Sergeants should use for a helmet colour, the image below in spoilers is from the original Praedis Zeta campaign, where the chapter first appeared, I remember asking at the time if this was the helmet colour, and the response was that he was a Veteran, so we have the Veteran colouring the same as the Ultramarines, but I can't see a red helmet looking good. I'm so far torn between yellow and blue, leaning towards blue, but I'd like input from yourselves on this.



Next up is my most intact survivor, Epistolary Septimus, Librarian of the Ultramarines:


He just needs rebasing, and he's done.

Finally, we have the size comparisons due to base height, stature and posing, between (a headless, dry fit) Captain Fabian, Epistolary Septimus and Sergeant Nameless.


Hope you all enjoy.

I’ve never been a fan of the way the blue helmets looked with the red on the BA Devs. Which is one of the few places I’ve seen that combo. So if those were the two options, I’d go yellow. But might suggest gold instead. If you have a body without a head glued on, you could do a rough basecoat on a couple spare heads and see which one you like best.

Or go with a different pattern for designating sarges, like back banners/toppers, reverse the red/black on the helmet, old fashioned helmet stripe.

I tried out a yellow helmet, and one with a white stripe, I've decided on yellow helmets for Sergeants, a white stripe for veterans, and a white helmet for Veteran Sergeants.
Here's how they look so far:

These are very rough, and there is zero tidy up done on them, but I think they're coming along.

Next up, I redid Fabian''s cloak, it just seemed too dark to me. Then I made a start on his banner, and did some work on the Base:




Finally, I decided to fix the primary gun on my Knight. He originally had a thermal cannon, but that was mangled, so I'm using the battle cannon now, but with a bit of very WIP conversion work to make it more ornate:


Hope you all enjoy.

Some progress is better than no progress, right? I've started work on this beauty:

No disintegration!

Nice start. Any progress is good progress. Little bits add up.

Looking good. I feel for your bro, I recently stripped a load of my older marines that I wasn't happy with the paint job with.

I had sore hands for a week!

EDC

Been swamped with work, so sorry for not updating. I've finished all the blue on the Imperial Space Marine, put Cassius on a bigger base, and got the 2nd half of the tactical squad out to paint, but didn't get around to it...



And I realise I've forgotten to photograph the Imperial Space Marine I'll edit him in later.

Forgotten to photograph him again...
But here's the 2nd tactical squad, out of the chem bath, ready to join the Imperius Reavers. Once I've painted squad I.

I accidentally bought a flyer. I like the Stormtalon, but I hated the canopy, so with the Stormhawk coming out, I knew I had to use that cockpit.

Building it as a talon, hawk, or magnetizing for both?

For the amount of gaming i get done, it's not worth magnetising, so I'll just be building the talon, but it seems incredibly easy to make both variants in one model.
I'll probably build the skyhammer missiles for this one, and I fully intend to get at least one more to build with lascannons. And one more to be a stormhawk.

I hate it when I accidentally buy minis...

Have you tried wrapping your wallet in bubble wrap to prevent further accidents?

EDC

I may try that one, seems like one way to reign in it.
I've finished the Stormtalon, just needs paint now, which I'm aiming to start tomorrow. I've got it in a few sub assemblies, which I intend to do with all vehicles. I went with the Skyhammer missiles, and the next one will be a lashawk.


Barrels were hard to do, but I'm happy with them.


The sub assemblies.


The mock up. Still a fair bit of clean up needs doing.

I broke out the spray paint and got the Stormtalon undercoated and basecoated, I'd forgotten how easy it was to use the spray cans, definitely good for vehicles.

Got the blue finished, I love drybrushing.



I'm trying out a rough look on the armour, similar to how I painted my Knight. As you can see though, the glaze isn't totally dry just yet.

More work done. Not much left to do other than squadron markings, wing leader markings, transfers and maybe some weathering.


I realise the light really makes theverything exhaust grime look pure black, IRL, it's a bit more subtle.

Looks good. The one thing that sticks out is the sea of blue. Not that we can do much about that as Ultramarines. I think the markings and such will help break it up.

What kind of photo setup are you using? You should be able to get better pictures by using more ambient light, and less flash. Solid backdrops also help.

Love those guys on the table. Enjoy blasting xenos with him.

Cheers buddy, I think you're right about the markings hopefully breaking it up, but we shall see tonight.
I've got no permanent set up at the moment, with the kids being so small, I have nowhere to set it up really. BUT, I start a new job in a few weeks, and that's going to involve me living away for most of the week, so I'll be setting up a painting and photo area in the new place, because I'll have nothing to worry about there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well, I'll been having fun with the Stormtalon, so I've gotten out two of the vehicles I only ever basecoated, a Landspeeder and a Venerable Dreadnought. Only managed to put a wash on them tonight.

Then, the current main project, with the start of his squadron markings and paint to denote him as wing leader, really feel this breaks the blue up.

So close! I've applied a few transfers, one of which went horribly wrong, came off, and shredded up the red stripe. Just need to fix that, then weather this bad boy. And base it. I hate big bases.

Stormtalon is looking awesome dude. Excellent work.

EDC

Hey guys,
I've been working a but too much on AoS lately, so I decided I should get back to 40k. So I bought Renegade.
I used the avenger gattling cannon to rebuild my Knight, and I've now built one of the ones from the box. I'll probably build the last one as a Paladin.

Gota love giant stompy robots. Just be sure to wipe your feet before coming back from patrol. Looks like you stepped in something.

Hopefully, one of many things Big Papa Fistbump* will step in!
Here's the three stompy robots assembled, sorry for the zero updates on things, but life is getting in the way of fun.



And another tactical squad, ready for paint. That I will maybe spray blue soon.



*Real name the Eternal Arbitrator.

Did a touch of painting last night.

Partially repainted the pauldron and knee, where the UM heraldry will be, blue on the Knight Warden (Virtuous Judgement), and painted his avenger gattling cannon and icarus autocannon with leadbelcher.
Undercoated the Knight Paladin (Unbowed Vigilance), and started the blue on his pauldron and knee.
Basecoated the carapace, in the first of many coats of yellow, and began the blue on the Knight Errant (Eternal Arbitrator). As this guy will be my Baron, he's going to have a fair bit more red than the others, namely the parallel lines of rank, ad well as fair chunks of black, with the helmet being predominantly red.

Batch painting knights? I figured you’d just do them one at a time.

Well, long time no update. Here's a killteam I've almost finished painting up, I decided to go for Novamarines with these guys.

Looks like you’ve stepped up your painting!