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Thanks mate - the addition of this guy makes them legal, but there's a lot more to get done to make them decent.



Today’s model is another Dark Angel. One that is – once again – a long, long time in the making. The model itself is one of the original Space Marine Librarians from 1990-1 – right around the time of the “Death Eagle Marine” variants, and like those figures, sculpted by Mark Copplestone. This particular fellow is imaginatively titled “Librarian with 2-handed Force Sword”. As you can see, he’s had a late-Rogue-Trader-era/2e Metal Jump Pack strapped (pinned!) to his back, allowing him to get stuck right into his foes.



Again mirroring the Death Eagle Marines, his helmet is a proto-MKVII helm underneath the psychic hood.



The trim comes from an old Epic transfer sheet, though he took a shelf dive at some stage and so one corner had to be repaired with paint. In the original small, DA force that I built in the past his job was (obviously) to join the Assault Squad and give them a more hefty punch in close combat. The transfers on his jump pack symbolise his twin allegiances to both the Dark Angels Chapter as well as the Inner Circle/Deathwing.



After sitting about 3/4 complete for a good decade or so, he’s now finally complete and likely to purge the Emperor’s enemies while hunting the Fallen.



I mentioned earlier the plan of running him alongside the Assault Squad, so I snapped a shot of them together. They’ll be coming to the table soon!

Nice work on a another very old model. The transfers on his jump pack are an especially nice touch. I also like the inversion of the usual light/dark colors on the force sword.

Thanks Josh. It's not picked up in the photos well, but there's a tiny, tiny DA icon on his left shoulder above the shield-scroll, and the light/ice blue on his sword is painted with a pearlescent paint, so it's got a bit of shimmer to it.

Nice librarian! Smite all the things in preparation for Assault!

Some wicked stuff dude.

Realky digging tge Jump Librarian the rhe LotD Sergeant.

EDC

Good lord that's an old model haha. Looks nice though, Azazel!

Excellent Librarian I painted one of those ancient librarians a while back however I used him as an Inquisitor due to scale with my 3rd ed marine army.

He's just a little hunched over with all of his weight of Knowledge, The Fallen and the Warp. Still plenty of fight in him when the time arises, though. Like Yoda.

I love him and his lightning force sword. One of my favorites from that era. Another favorite I'm sure you have is the guy with two power firsts who's hunched over in a football stance. I got about 10 of him somewhere because I was going to make a 40k chess set and use them as pawns.

Yeah, I've got him. He's currently painted as Death Company. I'm waiting to see what to do with him since he doesn't fit into a lot of spaces very easily.

He is the perfect template for an Angry Marine. just needs power boots

Lovely old models Az and beautifully painted. We appreciate the background info too. I think I've got one of those twin powerfist guys. I thought with some old combat knives as claws he would make a good lightning claw dude.

Thank you Weety! I always enjoy doing a bit of revisiting into the history of the models. For me it really adds to the enjoyment of blogging about them. Power-double-Fist-guy is probably going to stay in Limbo for awhile yet. Plenty of pother power-armoured dudes in front of him in the queue before I need to think or worry about him and the few other odd models that he's with.



Taking a brief diversion from Dark Angels (still need to finish their Tac Sergeant - hopefully later today!) - but instead I have the Bolter half of a Devastator Squad for the Minotaurs. Once again, with luck I'll finish the heavy half of the squad later today, but with poor weather for spraying in general, work tomorrow and so forth, it'll likely be a few days at best until I can get them photographed and posted up.



As with a lot of my Minotaurs, I've added in a few third party components here, which today are all from Anvil Industry, who are one of my favourite suppliers of unofficial bitz. Two of the marines have scopes added to their bolters while once again I've sprinkled in a couple of Anvil's "Spartan" helmets. The tabard is also from Anvil, though they're currently OOP for some reason.



The other additional parts are of course Forge World's Minotaurs shoulder pads that look pretty impressive as always. My only gripe with them is that some of them seem completely inappropriate for the left shoulder pad. I did finally come up with a solution for that, which I'll post up a bit later on.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this short update, and hopefully I'll have more from both the Dark Angels and the Minotaurs ready to show and ready to go very soon!

Looking good on the Mino's I agree about the pads too, they are a bit heavy on the top side of some with a skull etc, I just snipped it off and hoped for the best.

I like your take on these guys with a much cleaner paint scheme and the more silver and white ornamentation compared to Nerdies dark red and beat to heck. Both are great choices and both look great across the whole of the army.

Those are fantastic. I have to say the stripes on the bolsters really lift the whole squad to another level, details like that really stand out.

Thanks guys. I'm very happy with the way they're turning out. Doing things like the bolter stripes and freehand markings are what keeps a lot of the painting interesting to me. Original inspiration credit has to go to Sas0mg's Minos from a few years back for the overall colour and method of doing the armour, though I tweaked his scheme to be more to my own liking. Sadly his Plog here has been long abandoned and since then lost to Photobucket - Though I did go and download all of his Mino images. I did the same with Nerdy's photobucket folder as well. Haven't opened it, so I'm not sure if anything is lost, but given how much inspirational stuff Damo has done over the years, I decided I should grab the images while I could. Especially for when I get back to working on my AdMech/Mechanicum (new AdMech book in a few weeks - hooray!) My "skully" and "shield" Minotaurs shoulderpads have been diverted to another mini-project, but I've got a fair few other models to finish to do before I get back to those - hopefully the second half of the Dev Squad this weekend if I keep focused and don't get distracted by playing games or catching up with blogging too much spending time with friends and family and the cat...

And now, for something completely different:

Space Orks!



I actually started these models back in 2005, using a mixture of Fantasy and 40k Brian Nelson Ork components. I was originally making up one of those "Combat Patrol" forces (which is also how the DA and IW started life), though the entire Ork project was derailed hard due to a family tragedy which really hit me very hard. I've been eyeing the Orks I'd started back then a bit in recent months to get out and finish, and now I've started on them again. It's been one of the reasons I've been getting back into painting the odd fantasy Orc and Goblin this year. Kind of "warming up" my greenskin painting skills. This army is going to be a tribute of sorts, so I want to do it justice.



The CP force originally had 2 mobs of 10 (or 12ish?) Boyz. One mob of sluggas and one of shootas, with 'heavy shootas and rokkits as the support weapons, along with metal Nobz, led by a Warboss and with some grotz and a slaver on the side. While they were all (mostly) built, none were actually completed in terms of paint, so I'm getting onto that now - along with making some additions. I don't want to get carried away though - if I'm working on too many forces, none will get done to any satisfaction, so the Greenskins will be a nice side, palette-cleanser project for the time being, and I can take a serious look at them when their codex comes out. If I can get them to around PL30+ or so while painting them in this way, then so much the better and they can hit the table before the book comes out.



I went with camo (or "kamo") for their scheme because I enjoy painting it. It's a lot more work than painting them in more basic browns and greys and blues and reds or whatever, but this way painting them manages to keep me interested. I won't be doing too much with heavily green-based camo, since their skin is green and I don't want them to blend into one another. Also, being Orks, I can vary the patterns and colouration as much as I like, since uniform isn't exactly a strong concept to them.



While I guess painting them in camo makes them nominally Blood Axes when it comes to having to choose a Clan for rules purposes, I have to admit I never liked the Ork Clans or many of the background changes when it was introduced during late-RT and early 2e. The whole "fungus men" thing has never sat with me, so I simply ignore that aspect in my own head-canon. (Similar to how I ignore "Mon'Keigh - and may Gav Thorpe forever burn in hell for that one!) Some of the Clans were conceptually okay (Snakebites - the semi-feral Orks, for example) but too many of the examples and paint schemes went way too far down a ridiculous and garish road, reducing Orks to a silly sideshow of the comedy joke army of the 40k universe. I can handle a few jokey things, like squigs and the way gretchin are portrayed (and the Goff Rokk Band), but generally speaking, I like my Orks guttural, angry and brutal, and want to reflect that with my force. Much more original RT-Rulebook (and ironically, 3rd ed Rulebook) than 'Ere We Go.



Anyway, these are the first of what may never be a huge army (horde armies have a LOT of models to paint), but what should be a cool looking, brutal force.
I'm glad to have these guys back on the painting desk after so long.

That desert camo must have been a royal pain to get right, but it looks great! You've got a decent start at your own little WAAAGH! there.

Nice work on the orks, especially the camo and the integration of the fantasy orcs. I have about 3 million points of Orks, and I found that mixing the WHFB and 40K sets kept them from getting too boring and repetitive.

That's the thing about the camo. It took a little research to work out the patterns and colours, but I enjoy that sort of thing anyway, and the actual painting of it is (mostly) just fun. The Auscam is a bit tedious to do over a lot of models (you'll see my IG later down the line) but on a very few pieces of Ork clothing? Piece of piss!

And yeah, totally agreed that mixing in the Fantasy Orc components also keeps the models that bit more interesting.

Very nice - I dig the desert camo look.

My workplace has changed security settings and now I'm not seeing half the pics posted. I know imgur is blocked, I'm not sure who your using, but I can't see it while I'm at work . I'll have to look in the morning, but that kills half my break time usually .

Yep, I'm using Imgur since it seems stable (as stable as you can get, anyway) after Photobucket. You could try the wordpress blog, since those photos are hosted directly on WP.

Okay I'm home now and I got to tell you that camo is awesome . All blends together well yet diverse at the same time.

My problem with the pics affects so many more blogs right now since a lot of people have moved to imgur and it just means I have to check some WIP here when at home, and the rest anytime. Yours and the_Blackadder's blogs are some of my favorite and now your both blocked when I'm at work and need the cool pics to make it through a shift.

Beautiful camo on those orks. Not something I've seen done very often before, and the desert tones really pop against the green skin. Great work.

And would you believe your post is the first time the whole Mon'Keigh / monkey thing has ever registered with me?! Feel like a right berk.

Lovely job on those Orks. As the username suggests, Orks are my main love in 40K, and I did a lot of swapping and changing with the fantasy components back in the day too. I think you've done a really nice job on integrating them here with your colour scheme though.

Theo - try the Wordpress site. The photos there are hosted on Wordpress rather than on Imgur. See if that gets through? https://azazelx.com/

Thanks guys - Da Boyz are definitely in my painting rotation now, so they'll be popping up with some regularity from here on in. They'll give me a nice bit of variation from painting Power Armour all of the time lately as well. I really enjoy painting the camo. And yeah. "Mon'Keigh" stuck in my craw ever since I first read it. There's another, more recent stupid name they've used for something with that same 13-year-old boy "hur-hur" mentality that pisses me off as well, but luckily I can't remember it right now.

Having said all that - here's some more Power Armour!



After a bit of a delay (lots of Diablo III recently!) I've finally completed the Dark Angels Veteran Sergeant figure, thus completing 1 Section, and therefore 4th Squad. As you can see, I've opted for dark green robes with a deep red inner. I never liked it when GW changed that element of their DA scheme from dark green robes to bone coloured ones - so I'm simply ignoring it and painting them my way, but in more of a black-green with a desaturated highlight to help distinguish them visually from the armour.



He is one hell of a fiddly figure. While the robes are simple enough, he's just dripping with extra details, sculpted rather finely as well. This is a figure I picked up a few years ago, rather than having purchased at release. His base tab seems to say "GW01" but 2001 seems a bit old for this model, and he's not in any of the catalogues I can find over at Stuff of Legends until 2010 - though there's only abiout thee useful catalogues there covering figures in the Noughties. Maybe the sculptor had a dyslexic moment, or perhaps it was sculpted for some time before being released. I don't recognise the sculptor, either - perhaps Diaz? That's something you could do with hand-sculpted metal figures, and as much as I enjoy the new digitally-sculpted plastics, it's a nice little thing to be able to look at a model and recognise who the sculptor was. Something still very possible with smaller companies, of course.



His offsider here with the plasma gun is a metal torso married to a pair of plastic 3rd edition legs. The torso of course came from the Space Marine Bike Squadron, which appealed to me as a cool looking "plasma gun at rest" - as opposed to the limited MKVII armour options at the time this guy was built (there was not yet a plastic plasma gun in the modern style.) ...you kids today, you have it so easy. Everything in plastic. Back in my day we had to walk to school uphill, in the snow, barefoot, backwards...



Ahem.

Two of these three are simply plastic 3rd edition marines (with a few pouches added), while their squadmate is the metal MKVIII model with plastic arms. He's here essentially because of the Sergeant in MKVIII armour that I used in the other squad. It only took 20+ years for us to get the DeathWatch models in proper, multipart MKVIII armour, but I'm sure a few of those could be built and incorporated easily into regular marine squads. Hm....



And here's the entire squad, finally complete with both sections fully manned now that I've finished their new Sergeant.

That Sarge is one of my favorite older models too! I had him many years ago so 01 might not be far wrong! if I find him again i'd buy him for sure just to paint :-) your army is coming along pretty fast too! and I love seeing the older more original schemes coming back with your work like the weapon colours/stripes etc.

More dark angels woot!

Orks look good too and that's saying something because I largely dislike gw orks.

I about quit dark eldar back in the day over mon'kiegh...

Classic DA's and those Camorks look so good. Great job!