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Today we have the second (and last) model I finished for Dreadtober 2017. And yes - Josh has called it a couple of times. I just wanted to hold off on the confirmation until it was done!



When I restarted on this model for Dreadtober, most of the basic work was already done. Long done in some parts, and then piecemeal during the various times I’ve tried to make myself complete the model over the years, but it had been a real albatross for a long, long time. My Dreadtober work, then – was a bit of final cleaning up, shading, highlighting, de-skittling parts of the model, and then of course adding in the iconography. There are some Easter Eggs here for those who recognise them as well.



The model is the old, 2nd edition Metal Space Marine Dreadnought with a Plasma Cannon converted from the Multi-Melta and a metal Space Marine Plasma Cannon, because none of those parts existed when I built this model – not even the resin Plasma Cannons from Forge World. The arm is magnetised, and all that metal is why it droops a little. I’ll add back in a little bit of blu-tac which will reinforce the magnet enough to hold itself up for long periods



The Mentor Legion were my second “proper” Space Marine army, following my Rogue Trader Ultramarines and the mess I made of them when the latter part of 2nd edition hit – which I will discuss some other day. I started the Mentor Legion when 3rd edition came out. “New Edition, New Army” wasn’t really a thing back then – certainly not as a marketing term, anyway – but it’s what I chose to do at the time.



One of the things that put me off from finishing this model for the longest time was the lack of Mentor Legion transfers or Iconography available. Back in the 1990s, when I used a Mac (G3/233), I created a transfer sheet with Mentor Legion decals, along with many Aquila, and all sorts of other icons that would be very useful for wargaming. I purchased a sheet of decal paper, and ran it through my Inkjet. Looked amazing. After a wait to allow it to dry, I then sprayed it with a fixative as the instructions stated, and it ran and was ruined. And that was the end of that until the 30th of October 2017 when I finally tried again. Because I really wanted to add the chapter number (888) of the Mentor Legion to the model.



Of course now, in my home office, I have a really quite good quality colour laser printer. I’ve had unused decal sheets for a few years, but again – it took the completion of this project and the deadline inherent with “Dreadtober” to get over that particular hump. I also had some 3-d printed “owl” icons made by a nice fellow on Shapeways. I’ll update the post in a few days with his details once my next order has been sent as GW has been a bit litigious with this sort of thing lately and I’m a bit tired of things I like that aren’t really enforceable being ruined by C&D’s from big corporations lately.



The rear-facing number on top of the sarcophagus was inspired by police and similar vehicles that do the same. It’s not really at a proper aircraft recognition size, but it still looks decent. I’ve gone for a “Dreadnought number” rather than using the company number of my Mentor Legion. Mentor Legion, I should point out – circa White Dwarf 98/ – as distinct from the red-raptor headed “Mentors” that they kind-of retconned the chapter into, though with such little detail that it doesn’t matter. I consider them a successor chapter, or perhaps a sub-chapter in my own head-canon. I might write it up one day, or perhaps not. Either way, there’s so little written about them post-WD98, and what came later is contradictory enough that there’s plenty of Tabla Rasa space there, so I’m sure I could write up some fluff that incorporates it well enough and would probably make more sense.



So there we are then. I guess I’ll need to get to work on the rest of the unfinished Mentor Legion sometime soon enough, but I’ve got other stuff to clear out first before I re-start that project in earnest. It might even be a 2018 one.



We’ll finish with a shot of the pair of Dreads that Dreadtober motivated me to finally complete. Both finished, finally. After so many years. It feels bloody good to get this pair of monkeys off my back.

Oooh I like that white and green scheme mate

A fine pair of Dreads!

Mentor legion, a very fine choice - I always loved the old picture of the Mentor putting on his armour.

Dreads look awesome! I very nearly picked up a used Forgeworld World Eaters Dread at my FLGS yesterday, but passed because I don't think I would use it very much, if ever. If it's still there later I might pick it up anyways. I just love Dreadnoughts!

Nice Dreadnaughts. Both look stunning in their own unique ways.

 Azazelx wrote:
Today we have the second (and last) model I finished for Dreadtober 2017. And yes - Josh has called it a couple of times. I just wanted to hold off on the confirmation until it was done!

And thus to I confirm my Old Guy cred. I remember the Mentor Legion being briefly popular in my little gaming group back when their rules were released. I don't think any of us actually go around to painting any, though.

Seeing the contrast between the green and white,plus all accessories, makes me think the model should be too busy to work, but it all comes together with a nice, old-school vibe. Do you find the Shapeways bitz worth the price? I can't help thinking that shipping must be killer.

That is an absolutely cracking job on that dreadnought - very nice work!

Slinky - top marks for pulling that old piece of artwork from the archive!

Thank you, gents. I'll get some more group dreadnought photos sorted out at some stage. If the Mentor Dread was smaller, all of the decals and decorations would make it look a bit too busy - or if they were in more colours, but I feel like it's just on the safe side of not looking like a Nascar. The shapeways shipping is small compared to how quickly the bitz prices add up, especially as it's a flat rate (or seems to be since the bits are so light). I've spent a fair few hundred bucks on them in the last few months, but I'm doing it in mind that:
1) GW will probably shut a lot of them down (and already has) and
2) because of 1), I'm using a buy as many as I'll EVER use and be done with it mentality rather than buy as I need - so getting chapter badges and such for armies I've literally done nothing at all on.

I might grab a few more assuming they have a Black Friday sale. We'll see.



Obliterators.

They’re not good models, and we all know this. The current models aren’t that old, but they’re old enough to have been retired and replaced with models that aren’t gak. These models are less gak than the original ones – those are really gak, but these ones are gak too. Just less so. Still, I updated/resurrected my original pair just over a year ago, and they’re obviously a thing in the new Chaos army, just as they were before, so I finally forced myself to find and dig out another one of them to complete the squad, since these days they’re entirely bought in sets of three.

I did change out the head (again) in order to make the model look a little more “Iron Warriors” and a little less “hot garbage”. This is a MKIII head from Forge World. I think it was from an Iron Hands kit. I do think it improves the appearance of the model significantly.



Just as I mentioned last time, I really dislike the random weapon-spam look of their arms, and so just as I was a bit more judicious with the others I assembled over a decade ago, I was again with this one. Twin-linked bolters on one arm, with ammunition magazines sticking out of the side. (Wait.. so how does he reload? Shh.. don’t think. The model is awful. It’s a meat-man. Don’t think. Don’t use your brain here…)



There might have originally been a decent sculpt underneath all of that, before the sculptor covered their sculpt in too much greenstuff. I will say that I think painting it like meat makes it look less bad than GW’s go-to of pinkish flesh. Which isn’t to say that this is good looking. If you look carefully, you can see the dented left shoulder where I accidentally dropped the model wen in the final stages of finishing it. Somehow it dented the shoulder without damaging the paint. It’s certainly a heavy hunk of metal, in any case.



…and the left arm. Again I’ve gone both minimalist and attempted to make the arm look less rubbish. In this case by using two melta barrel ends I found in a bits box – from converting metal Imperial Guardsmen back in the 1990’s. It actually kinda almost looks okay here, and as I’ve mentioned I’ve been practising a few times lately – another couple of heat-discoloured weapon barrels.



So now I have a trio. The three models required to legally field the Obliterators as a unit in 8th edition Warhammer 40,000. I’ve got more of these models. A bunch of finecast ones bought cheaply secondhand. I planned to make them into Mutilators, but I’m not sure if:

a) Mutilators are worthwhile in 8th

b) I can really be bothered to build and mildly convert them into something passable. I guess I have some spare parts from Ork Mega Armoured Nobz.

c) Which army to build them for. Despite the confluence of the Iron Warriors and the (groan) Obliterator Virus in the lore, I feel like they’re a bit gribbly for my Iron Warriors. Or to have to many of in my Iron Warriors. I’ve also got all those Dark Vengeance models that are a bit too …Chaosy for my Iron Warriors, so I need to decide on a Non-Mono-aligned Fallen Legion to go with my Traitor Legion. Which I guess will be Word Bearers, since I’m disqualifying the four Chosen Legions, I already have the IW, I have specific plans for a small force of Alphas and Black Legion, and I don’t really connect with the Night Lords (and they’re in many ways more murder-y than chaos-y).

If I loved the models, then a) and b) would not be an issue. As it happens, it’s much more the case of “I’ve got them, let’s see if I can be motivated to assemble and paint them.” So… yeah.

I... looked at those and said "Hey, those sculpts don't look bad... wonder what they are?" Considering I find the Obliterator models to be some of the ugliest ones GW has ever put out, WOW you did an impressive job there! The head swap combined with the paint scheme (the flesh looks great) makes them immensly more appealing, although it's hard to hide the poo-squat. Very, very impressive!

Edit: For reference, this is what the stock GW painted ones look like

The helmets are a great change.

Perfectly twisted and the application of the red muscle looks spot on with such an awkward model, helmets make them at least 100% better looking too!

and I must stop looking at your blog......... now I am leaning towards a Deathwing army even though I don't like the DA! but thanks to you and your expert commentary I wanted to learn more so I did dammit!

So I’ve started to look into my archives and bring out some of my Necromunda figures and give them the 2017 treatment. This means finishing figures that were never completed, giving them new bases – and of course – de-skittling them. I’m going to do them a pair at a time for the time being, since it means I can concentrate on the models as individuals and actually get them done – something I find much, much harder when doing models in larger groups – even 10 at a time for anything that’s not-identical.

Rather then typing a lot of words, I’ll just show the models.





Here’s how they were previously.



Not a lot of changes: dirt bases, since I wanted them to be as generic as possible at the time. I was never happy with the tiger striping on the leggings, so they were cleaned up. While I think the green armour plates looked decent, it did lead to a bit too much happening in terms of colours. Scabbards have been changed to a dark blue, and I’ve changed the weapon furniture from green (originally designed to look the same as my Imperial Guard) to greys. I did leave the shotgun belts and some other pouches in a light khaki green.

I don't think those gangers looked bad before TBH. They do look pretty good with the new paintjob, though.

They weren't bad. Well, the tiger stripes annoyed me, but the green armour plates I think looked good - but there was a bit of skittles overdose happening - especially with these and the other models (still need to update, didn't have a chance this weekend) together.

Overall an improvement, for sure, but I like the tiger striping, think you should have left it

Some great looking gangers there, Azazel .

Thanks guys. I've got some better tiger striping to show shortly - when I finish and update some other gangers. The one on her wasn't up to standard.

Oh, I do love those Escher. New look, old look, whatever. Nice work.

I have never played Necromunda, but I always did like the models. You made the right call on the green armor, I think. A more limited palette suits the models much better.

Necromunda is probably my favourite game GW has done. Interested to see how the new version plays.

I like the use of bright colours on Necromunda gangs. Particularly House Escher. I liked both the old scheme and the repaint. Look more cohesive now.

I also think the bright colours work well for them, though I'm glad I toned them down. I haven't had a chance to get the others finished/updated yet. I hopes to have them done before my New Necro stuff arrives, but apparently that ain't going to be happening. Yet, anyway. It'll be good to see how the new version plays.



I’ll lead this post off with an objective marker that I just completed. It’s actually the previous base that the Mentor Legion Dreadnought was based on, before I pried it off for a fresh start. I considered prying the dead Chaos Marine off it as well, but then figured that it would be easier and probably more effective to just glue some more crap down to the base – so it received a munitions crate and a half-buried barrel, courtesy of some of the recent GW basing and terrain kits.



I’m in two minds as to whether I should add some tufts to fill in some of the empty space. I don’t mind it looking a bit more sparse and generic. Anyone have any opinions on that?



I’m also thinking that perhaps I should rim the base – either in black or brown so it’s consistent. Maybe go over the dirtied-up crate with some dry pigment? Hm…

Then again, I could well be overthinking a small, fairly insignificant bit of table fodder.



Some 40k figures to provide with a fuller sense of scale. I’m sure it’ll all end well with these three on site.



I’ve also done these Teleport Homers recently-ish, so I thought I’d throw them in here. More or-less one at a time as I’ve found them on sprues and amongst other junk, just copying the same scheme, and varying the colour of the lights – just in case I ever use them for anything and need to distinguish them from one another. I guess I could even use them as objective markers from time to time, especially since Terminators don’t actually need them anymore in 8th edition.



Here are some RT-era Black Templar terminators doing their rendition of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” Again for scale. (And I guess, context?)

Good work recycling that base. It will make a nice bit of decoration on the tabletop.

Those things are teleport homers? I have at least one in a bitz grab bag I picked up years ago, but have never known what to do with it.

Thanks Josh. I'll need to get some more done at some stage, too. And yep, teleport homers. You can just as easily cut them up for bits or use them as objective markers or add them to scenery these days, since they're no longer a distinct thing in the current edition.

Another scenic post today – Pegasus Hobbies’ Technobridge.



I picked this up quite awhile ago, got around to assembling it awhile ago, and then when we had a brief run of good weather several weeks ago I was finally able to paint it. Warm to hot weather is what I tend to need to get me motivated for any kind of scenery project, mostly so I can take things outside and spray them, and also because drying time is much improved. Box shot is taken from Pegasus’ website. I literally recycled the box (which I had kept for all this time) a week before I took these photos. Ooops!



I wanted it to look weathered and worn, so after the first spray coats of gunmetal and then a mid-silver, I played around with Vallejo Rust Washes, Orange paint and Pledge One Go floor wax (didn’t work out so great), drybrushing and a couple of different weathering powders.



I also wanted to emphasise the direction of years of traffic on the bridge, so I used a tissue (hi-tech modelling tools, here!) to “pull” the half-dried grime across the panels along the length of the bridge, creating a directionally weathered effect.



Here’s a scale shot, so you can see roughly how big the thing is. I didn’t have any vehicles ready, but it could easily fit a single Land Raider, but it’s just a bit too tight to fit two modern Rhinos side by side – you could probably fit a pair of original RT-era rhinos next to each other, though.



Unfortunately, the thing is too large for my light box, so this was the best I could do to see the sides of the thing once complete. Overhead light is obviously much stronger on the table. While this can easily be considered sci-fi/40k/Necromunda scenery due to its Industrial look and feel, those same design factors actually make it pretty appropriate for a lot of modern settings as well. This is A Good Thing.

I didn't realize that was so big. It looks great.

I’ve talked about Painting December recently, which was a thing I did a couple of years ago when I decided to paint up a couple of the larger, more impressive models that I’d collected over the years – which just get pushed aside because I often have a bit of a mental block when it comes to painting things larger than “human” sized. So my plan this year is to “Revive” it, and paint some of the larger, more impressive models that I’ve had sitting around for years.

When I brought it up, a few other people indicated interest, and so – hey, why not make it a bit of a community thing for whomever wishes to participate.

So here’s the “rules” for anyone who wants to join in:

It would be a nice thing to paint something new/different/interesting/cool over the Christmas/Summer/Winter break. Something that works as a centrepiece model of some kind.

1) ++++EXPUNGED++++
2) Nothing smaller than an AoS hero or Ogre-sized model – I’m looking to have fun doing the kind of centrepiece models I don’t usually allow myself to work on due to the backlog.
3) ++++EXPUNGED++++
4) No Scenery – either Big pieces or Scatter terrain – I’ll usually work on these sorts of things over summer anyway and I’ve got a few of each part done, but they’re separate things to this “project”.
5) ++++EXPUNGED++++
6) ++++EXPUNGED++++
If you’d like to play too, you can skip stipulations 1, 3, 5 and 6, but bear in mind this isn’t about building models, it’s about painting them – and getting at least one model completed from start to finish, not including assembly. (Maybe we can do Building April or something later?)

You can start (and complete) assembly anytime you like, including before you get started or the challenge officially begins. When does it begin? I’m glad you asked!

It begins in December. You set your own exact start date.

Ideally when you start to get some time off so you can settle down and relax a little and enjoy some painting time. It concludes at the end of January. If that gives you enough time to finish a cool model – that’s bloody awesome. If it gives you enough time to finish a half-dozen cool models – even bloody better!



My own work this year doesn’t close up until 22nd December, so that’s probably going to be my own “official” start time, but I’ve been assembling, and I’m even allowing myself to base coat from a spray can before I “start”.

If you’d like to participate, then just drop a note in the comments. Make sure to smash that like button, share and subscribe! Hit the notification Bell so you can.. oh wait, I’m not an annoying YouTube vid. So yeah. Just leave a note in the comments, and Ill put together a “home base” post with links to participants blogs. Also let me know when you officially start doing stuff, as I’ll do “round up” updates every so often. Maybe/probably/hopefully once a week over Dec and Jan. I can't be arsed making another thread for it, especially since it's a short-form event, and people can have heaps of photos on their own blogs. (If you don't have your own Plog, feel free to post your stuff in this thread). If there are a gakload of people wanting to participate, I'll do a thread, but I can't see it, TBH.



And yes, I’m setting myself a pair of Nurgle Daemons as my own personal target. The Great Unclean One from 1997 that has been sitting in my lead pile since 1997 and the much more recent Forge World Nurgle Daemon Prince known as Mamon Transfigured. If I’m successful with this pair, there are a few older models I started but never finished (Be’Lakor, Marauder Giant, Rogue Idol) and plenty of others not yet touched.

Count me in.

Oohhh. Sounds good. Would an Inq54 mini be too small?

Works for me, mate!

I think maybe Mortarion is a go for this one. He might be going with me to Adepticon, so I think I'll go ahead and get him done for this.

Sounds like a plan, Zerg.



I haven’t finished anything recently. There are some Orks I haven't shown here yet, but nothing new actually completed in over a week now. It’s been the busiest month of the year at work, and there’s been a lot happening outside of work. We’ve just finished the longest, hottest streak of November weather in Melbourne’s recorded history which is in the midst of concluding with 2 months worth of rain over three days. While Pyro and Orez and a third friend helped to sandbag the entrance to the garage, which has a real danger of water entering, the constant rain has naturally, finally overwhelmed my roof, so I’ve got one bucket set up, catching water from the first leak, and a second bucket set up in preparation for when the second one starts dripping through the dark, wet, shiny patch in the ceiling’s plasterboard. I expect it’ll start in the next couple of hours. As fethed as all this is, the weather is .. it just started. Much worse than the first one. if they weren’t coming through the down light shafts and dripping off the actual light fittings I might not be quite to stressed about it all.

But… there’s nothing I can do about it. The Bureau of Meteorology has described the heat and following rain as an unprecedented weather event, and it’s not like the hurricanes and tropical storms that others have had to endure recently – or even nearly as bad as initially predicted (for Melbourne, at least). It’s just another stressor, and assuming that we don’t have an electrical fire – could almost be described as the least of my current concerns. Though that electrical risk certainly does stress me the feth out. I won’t be using those lights for several weeks at least, even after everything dries off and we get the roof looked at. Meanwhile, the buckets fill up drip by drop, and the road outside slowly morphs into a river…



So, miniatures. I’ve had this trio of Ork Killer Kans for a few years. Purchased from eBay already assembled, I sprayed them in metallics some months ago, and they’ve sat in a tub waiting for me to finish the actual Ork force first. Since I’m stressed as feth lately, and probably not going to be doing my best fine detail work, I’ve decided to work on broad details on these larger models to keep my mind occupied.



So today I’ve added discolouration to the metal. Purple, blue and sepia washes, as well as some drybrushing of a mix of Vallejo black and silver primers mixed with Model Air “Rust”. I’d previously washed all three with Nuln Oil Gloss which is what picked out all of those dark details, and picked out the odd bit of metal in another colour.



Now as effective as the discolouration looks, I’m not sure what to do next. Which is another one of the reasons these figures have sat for awhile. While my force is pretty much “Camo/Military/Blood Axe” themed, I’ve also been leaving metal items and armour bits unpainted so far. I’d most likely be painting some of the panels on the vehicles when I get to them, and even with these walkers darkened and dirtied-up some more, they could well still look a bit too “Rainbow Brite” if left untouched.

So I’m stuck again. Trying to decide if I should paint some panels, and if so, how many, which ones, and using what colours? Desert Yellow/Bone? With or without camo? Spray-paint-style lines for camo in the style of German WWII armour? (Because how would Orks paint vehicular camo – with a spray can?) or something just as simple but in a different style, like British EW Desert camo?

Or just desert Yellow/Bone, heavily weathered?

Oh, three new dark patches have appeared on the ceiling. Above Marouda’s desk, computer and printer. Time to move a whole lot of stuff and remove power boards entirely…