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"But John," you might say, "It's early November, why are you starting your Christmas Project Blog?"

Because the auto industry - in which I work - is having a slow down with microprocessors not flowing as they should, leaving me with tons of free time, which got my miniatures built way faster than originally expected. And while that might be bad for my bank account (not that bad, my mortgage was paid off four years ago), I'll need the time because this year it's Thousand Sons, the arch-nemesis of every Warhammer 40k painter. Chaos Trim! Fancy Helmets! Cloaks! Tzaangors!

Well...not too many Tzaangors, really. I painted some for my Age of Sigmar Disciples of Tzneetch army and I don't have a big desire to repeat it. But it wasn't entirely avoidable, given that Tzaangor Enlightened come in the current Combat Patrol. I actually have 2 leftover boxes of Enlightened and 1 box of Tzaangors I didn't assemble, because who has time for birdy bois when I could be painting armored ghosts and tanks and sorcerers. The Battle Force Box they put out this year helped a lot, it was really nice (10 Rubrics, 5 SoC, 4 Sekhetar, 3 Exalted Sorcerers)



Now I did salvage the unfinished Mutalith Vortex Beast from the AoS army and gave it the paint stripper treatment. Gotta have at least on Distraction Carnifex. Then there's 2 Deimos Rhinos and 2 Deimos Predators (Lascannons), 2 Daemon Princes (winged and on foot), Ahriman on Disc, Ahriman Azek from Horus Heresy on foot (Sorcerer or Exalted Sorcerer stand-in), 3 Exalted Sorcerers (1 on disc), Tzaangor Shaman on Disc, 3 Enlightened, 4 Sekhetar Robots, 2x 5 Scarab Occult Terminators and 3x 10 Rubric Marines (2 squads with flamers, 1 with bolters). Over 2700 points of Thousand Sons, almost 1000 of that tied up in characters.

Of course, this is in addition to my trial mini, a Sorcerer Lord in Terminator Armor (previously posted in P&M Showcase):



This is the color scheme of the Crystal Harbingers, because blue and gold and yellow are boring. Purple and copper is where it's at. Basing matches my Grey Knights for that epic sorcerer on psyker action (plus I could make a display board for 2 armies if I wanted to). Now, my AoS Tzneetch dudes have a different basing, but it's literally just texture paint so if I ever want to field Scintillating Legions it would take an afternoon to change up the basing on them.



Coincidentally, also purple (and not very shiny gold, but you can't have everything when working 6 years after the fact).

Obviously I won't update as often as I would if I was on actual vacation (which is still coming in December), as I still have to go to work some days for about a month, and Rubrics are going to take longer than most other minis. It is what it is. If I actually get done early maybe I'll build and paint a few more Tzaangors if I'm feeling crazy.

Good luck with you KSons. One of factions I wanna try but never have enough guts and skill to try.

Well, it took a while, but I got it all primed. Having so much texture compared to regular Space Marines meant these guys took about twice as long as regular marines to make sure paint got into all the chaos trim and filagree.



I also included a bunch of crystals. While I have leftover crystals from my Grey Knights, it was nowhere near enough.

Wow, that Tzneetch daemon is on another level.
Also, filigree is the true evil of chaos.

A bit of slog, but basecoats are finally applied by airbrush. It's all hand brushing from here on in.



A big snag was the fact that I was running out of Vallejo Bright Bronze. But no problem, a FLGS sells Vallejo paints, so off I go...



This is some industrial grade bull

The best I could match to was GW's Fulgurite Copper. At least I had the Rubrics, Sorcerers, SOCs and Sekhetars basecoated with old Vallejo Bright Bronze. Since it's shinier, I kept my reserves of the original to use for drybrushing highlights after washes.



Seriously Vallejo, did you even try? The irony is that I could have done the whole army in the new Bright Bronze color and it would have been fine, just thinned my wash down some more, but I find this out after 75% of the airbrushing is done...

Don't you check their other series for matching bronze?

 kabaakaba wrote:
Don't you check their other series for matching bronze?

Yeah Fulgurite Copper actually matches better.

Well, that took longer than expected.



About 20 hours total to paint 10 Rubrics. Part of this is because it's the first time doing them so I was making decisions, but Rubrics are just bloody complicated.



Full paint breakdown: Black primer, Vallejo Bright Bronze airbrush coat (as mentioned above, some models will be Fulgurite Copper, it's pretty close), thinned Fyreslayer Flesh contrast paint, drybrush the bronze color back up, then apply Vallejo Heavy Violet (high pigment load covers the metal pretty well - one coat in most places, some minor touchups). Highlighted purple with Pro Acryl Faded Plum. Vallejo Ghost Grey, Apothecary White Contrast and Pro Acryl Titanium White for the cloth, Vallejo Deep Sky Blue then thinned Terradon Turquoise Contrast Paint for the weapons (with more Deep Sky Blue highlights).



I wasn't sure what to do on the textured backs of helmets. The purple wouldn't have shown the texture well and trying to highlight textured surface would have been painful. Plus, I left the textures on the shoulders alone as well. I left a lot of the metallic alone on the backpack to concentrate on the front of the mini. You can't even tell, but I left the back of the torso metallic as well. Reaching in there was hard enough on the hoses and I didn't sub assembly these guys. Heck, even some areas of the front torso I couldn't reach, but I figured they were metallic, shaded and covered by the gun. Too much effort!



Even the bloody squaddies are as complex as most character models.



Basing matches my Grey Knights so they can duke it out over the planet of purple petals and warp infused crystals.

Bloody hell, that is clean lol.

John... It took next to no time at all to churn out 10 studio worthy Tzeench boyz, just behave yourself! They look excellent and I love their basing.

Ahahahah I've spent a week painting 5 guys that are nowhere near what you've offered us to gaze upon !

They look indeed amazing and I can't wait to see more.

Be proud of your work mate !

I'm actually very happy with the end result on the Rubrics, I was just too optimistic thinking I could get them to around 1.5 hours apiece, which is pretty much the limit for what I'd call 'speed' painting, where I can get 5 models done a day. At 20 hours for squad of 10, there's no way I can compress that to a squad in less than 3 days. It's a lot more motivational when you can get 5 dudes done in a day. Still, I'm a lot more willing to overshoot with this army than I was with the Kroot from last year (which I didn't touch through 2025) and can see Thousand Sons as being an ongoing army project rather than a one-off Christmas deal.

Wow. The purple and bronze look is fantastic, and really well executed. I'm looking forward to your progress with them!

 John Prins wrote:
I'm actually very happy with the end result on the Rubrics, I was just too optimistic thinking I could get them to around 1.5 hours apiece, which is pretty much the limit for what I'd call 'speed' painting, where I can get 5 models done a day. At 20 hours for squad of 10, there's no way I can compress that to a squad in less than 3 days. It's a lot more motivational when you can get 5 dudes done in a day. Still, I'm a lot more willing to overshoot with this army than I was with the Kroot from last year (which I didn't touch through 2025) and can see Thousand Sons as being an ongoing army project rather than a one-off Christmas deal.

Oh right. Well I did start batch painting my latest squad of veterans and it was going smoothly and quickly up till the point where I had to focus on their individual details and spent roughly the same time on each Shields than on the rest of the body per mini so yeah.. I get being over optimistic on the timeline ahah !

That would be one amazing looking army anyway ! Keep up the great work

I love the look of Rubrics marines, but I know I would go crazy trying to paint those.
You did a great job with them.

Second squad of Rubrics finished.



I got ambushed by Nurgle and couldn't paint for a few days - holding a brush steady while I try to cough up a lung is a losing battle - so I took a bit longer to get this squad done, though roughly the same amount of actual painting time was involved. Maybe an hour shaved off?

I did the cloth a bit more rough - deeper, targeted shading and a bit more highlights, but otherwise the same. I had to paint some more crystals, as my crystals from my GK project have almost run out and I only have big clusters. These lads got some chunky crystals regardless.

Still 1 1/2 weeks until my Christmas vacation starts, hopefully I can get another squad done in that time.

Looking crisp! Loving the bases too. Hope Nurgle will let you paint more of those!

Third Squad of Rubrics complete.



I think it's fair to say this took so long because I had Rubric Fatigue. Which is a real thing I did not just make up. But blowing 60-odd hours over a month painting 30 Rubrics has certainly taken its toll. On to better things (and by that I mean smaller squads of stuff that can be painted in a more reasonable time frame). I've got a solid 3 weeks of Christmas vacation to burn.

Scarab Occult Terminators



These guys are easier to paint than Rubrics. They still took me about 12-13 hours, but the open pose really makes things easier compared to Rubrics having their guns across their chest, not to mention all the extra stripey bits on their arms and legs. Scarabs only have that on easy to reach shoulders (and the headdress, naturally). The biggest pain was the cloak on the squad leader, it's hard to reach the part between the cloak and the body.

Magic Space Robots!



Or at least I think some magic is involved. At least in the flamethrowers or something. Anyways, I went with power claws, because Infiltrating robots are going to get into melee probably pretty quick, and 2 Damage deals with marines a lot better. Plus, double flamers.



Honestly I found myself wanting more detail on these models. I either had the choice of painting all the mechanical stuff a different color from the armor plates (tons of time I didn't want to spend) or leaving all the mechanical stuff in the back the same color as the armor trim.



Obviously, I made the sensible choice. Though I did glow up the claws on the legs a bit to break it up a little bit. It still ends up a very brass blob of mechanical stuff, but I'm going to blame GW for this one, they could have sculpted some more armor plates back there.

But that brings me to 995 points of Thousand Sons, so it's time for the obligatory army progress shot.



That's a lot of striped headdresses (and flamer weapons).

Your army is incredible, and very striking en masse. Well done!

Sorcerers!



Or Exalted Sorcerers. Because it works that way. I'm not really complaining about that. Maybe someday if I get another box of Sorcerers I'll use the animal head guys as Exalted Sorcerers.

Anyways, white cloth is a pain in the butt, and these guys have so much white cloth. Geez.

I’ve watched a few of your Christmas projects John, but this one seems a step up! Really cool colour scheme you’ve gone for, the gold trim is very neatly done. The white robes look fantastic even if they’re a pita! Good luck getting them finised

 gobert wrote:
I’ve watched a few of your Christmas projects John, but this one seems a step up! Really cool colour scheme you’ve gone for, the gold trim is very neatly done. The white robes look fantastic even if they’re a pita! Good luck getting them finised

Yeah, this is a step up in quality, as I'm not really speedpainting like my other projects. This is more of a "paint normally, just more painting per day than usual because I'm on vacation". I did try to get the scheme to as fast as reasonably possible, but Rubrics still take 2 hours each and characters are 4-5 hours. Thousand Sons is one of those armies I wanted to do for a long time so while I might be making a few compromises, I'm not cutting nearly as many corners.

Yeah, it’s really paying off and 2-5hrs is still rapid and highly effective! I’m actually part way through some Necrons that borrowed heavily from your scheme from a few years back

 gobert wrote:
Yeah, it’s really paying off and 2-5hrs is still rapid and highly effective! I’m actually part way through some Necrons that borrowed heavily from your scheme from a few years back

Silver + Contrast Paint is basically the ultimate solution for Necrons.

And so we come to the Daemon Prince.



Much time spent giving texture to the skin. I think it helps make the model feel a lot more 'unreal' compared to the Rubics/Sorcerers running around in physical armor.

Also, a bit of conversion work to give him a staff instead of an axe/sword. Leftover Lord of Change weaponry came in handy.



And a complete lack of banded sections. I briefly considered doing white banding on the back/tail plates, but I gave myself a break. I did do extra highlighting on the textured purple plates.

Anyways, it's a fun model. I do have another Daemon Prince with Wings in the queue, but it won't be next.

It's a TONK!



I honestly made a lot of mistakes with this tank, the first being forgetting to drybrush the copper after shading, so I did half the purple before realizing my mistake and just said to hell with it and painted the metal highlights rather than correct the overbrush. I still wonder if I should just mask and airbrush the purple, as it took 2 coats and I had some brush/thick areas, though the varnish helped to hide that stuff.

The Horus Heresy Deimos tanks are much easier to assemble and honestly look better than the current Rhino variants. Ironically the Deimos Rhino is a bit cheaper to buy, though they're perfectly 40k legal in terms of weapons loadout. Though I did have to get creative with the Havoc Launcher

I wanted to do a bit more stripy bits but there's not ton of good places for horizontal banding aside from the stack armor, and that's right next to the sponsons. Maybe the Rhino will work out better for stripes.

This looks absolutely smashing. Very clean purple & gold there. It's so easy to forget steps when it comes to tanks when you normally paint a whole infantry army.

A second, different Tonk.



This one got more stripes.