June Painting Pledge - Necrons and Chaos Daemons

Morning folks.

It's a bit far into the month for this, but if I don't post it I will be giving myself an excuse not to do it. Last month was quite a productive month, with the exception of my Eldar vehicle weapons, so this month I'm looking at a bit less painting and more building.

Paint:

• Necron Ghost Ark
• Remaining Eldar vehicle weaponry.

Build and Spray:

• 20 Bloodletters
• 1 Skullcannon
• 1 Herald of Khorne
• 3 Ravenwing Bikes

Buy:

• Eldar Codex
• 3 Ravenwing Bikes

So far I've made a bit of progress by getting the Ghost Ark basecoated in black, which is a massive chore since I've glued it all together and it's a right pain to get into the gaps.

I've also managed to glue up the Skullcannon. Originally I was hoping I could magnetise it to enable me to swap between the Bloodthrone and Skullcannon, but gave up on that as I needed the Herald on foot for my list idea.

That's all for now then, I'll be posting up a few more micro articles over the next couple of days, then on Monday hopefully do a photo dump from Phalanx.

SB

May Painting Pledge - Dark Angels Devastator Squad and Belial Complete

Morning folks.

Quick progress update from me today, expect  afew more posts on a variety of topics over the next week or so, but for now it's my progress over the weekend.

Sorry for the terrible pictures of stuff but last night the lighting was pretty bad.

I upgraded to the new Belial model and plan on using my old conversion as a Commander in Terminator armour if ever I need to use a bogstandard character. Personally with the new rules I much prefer the sword and Storm bolter combination.

Plasma Cannon Devastator squad I'd been wanting to get done for ages. Guarantee in the first game they're used I'll roll a load of Gets Hot and then they will die in the first turn.

Paint:

• 5 Dark Angels Devastators
• 1 Belial
• 1 Stormlord
• 1 Trazyn
• 1 Cryptek
• 1 Overlord
• 10 Immortals with Tesla
• 5 Lychguard with Voidblades and Shield.
• Remaining Eldar vehicle weaponry.

Build:

• 20 Bloodletters
• 1 Skullcannon / Bloodthrone

That's all for now folks! See you soon!

May Painting Pledge - Dark Angels and Necron Infantry

Morning folks.

I'm still kind of underway with my April painting pledge, but thought I would outline my plans for this upcoming month and hope I can clear off another chunk of backlog. Money is a bit tight this month, so hopefully I won't be buying any new minis to add onto this, although I'm still weighing up an army trade with someone on TWF - so that could get added on.

Last month I got all my Necron stuff sprayed up from when their new Codex came out. I've used Necrons twice in the time since their codex was released, but I'm hoping I can give them a bit more play time in the next few months and try and get myself an enjoyable 6th edition list with them.

I'm also hoping that since my Necron colour scheme is the old boring metal and black, this lot will get out of the way pretty fast. I'm sticking to the infantry this month however, as I want to take my time on the vehicles and do them at the same time as I intend to re-paint my Monoliths to match.

In addition to that lot, I've already started on painting my much anticipated (and probably quick to get shot to death) Plasma Cannon Devastator squad for my Dark Angels force. I'm hoping these guys are quick enough to get out of the way as I've already chewed into a chunk of time for this month.

On top of that, last month while I did some game trading and got a bit of cash, I went and bought myself a Belial model to replace my converted and magnetised one. With his new rules I can't imagine taking the other alternatives to the Sword and Storm Bolter, whereas in 5th edition I would always have taken the TH/SS. So he's also on the painting pile and my old model will become a Captain in Terminator Armour.

So here's this month's list in full:

Paint:

• 5 Dark Angels Devastators
• 1 Belial
• 1 Stormlord
• 1 Trazyn
• 1 Cryptek
• 1 Overlord
• 10 Immortals with Tesla
• 5 Lychguard with Voidblades and Shield.
• Remaining Eldar vehicle weaponry.

Build:

• 20 Bloodletters
• 1 Skullcannon / Bloodthrone

That's my list for the upcoming month. As I say, hopefully I've nailed DA painting and can knock the Devs and Belial out pretty quick, and the Necrons are a very, very basic colour scheme so shouldn't be too bad.

Here's hoping!
SB

April Painting Pledge - Eldar Vehicles - War Walkers Complete!

Been a while without a post since life has been in the way a bit and I've been having to grind through this month's painting pledge.

I've now finished the 6 Eldar War Walkers from the pledge and this was probably a pledge of it's own. There's so many fiddly bits, resetting black armoured areas and the sheer amount of gem stones on the model too. This combined with the fact every few minutes part of one would break and I'd have to re-glue it, meant that progress was very slow for the second half of the month.

So there we go. 6 Eldar War Walkers with Scatter Lasers and a Missile Launcher in each team too for a bit of anti-armour punch / blast weaponry (and also because I didn't have enough bits for all Scatter Lasers).

In all, I've not technically finished my entire pledge... but all that's left are the various magnetised weaponry which hopefully I can finish off in a night or two. But 95% of the work is now completed and with a good run at it tonight I might be able to finish the others and plan my pledge for May.

Paint:

• 3 Wave Serpents
• 6 War Walkers
• 1 Falcon
• All the Wave Serpent, Falcon and Guardian platform weaponry.
  

Spray:

• Dark Angels Plasma Cannon Devastator Squad
• 1 Imotekh
• 1 Trazyn
• 1 Cryptek
• 1 Overlord
• 10 Tesla Immortals
• 5 Lychguard with Voidblade and shield
• 1 Ghost Ark
• 1 Catacomb Command Barge / Annihalation Barge

Buy:

• Soul Grinder (Not happening now.)
• Tyranid Additions
• Black Spray

That's all for now folks, hopefully before the weekend I can get the weaponry done and sign off my Eldar for a while, just in time for a brand new Codex. YAY.

April Painting Pledge - Eldar Vehicles - Progress #4

Morning folks.

Made a bit of progress on Wednesday night with my Eldar pledge, managing to get my Falcon painted, washed and based ready for warfare!

I'm much happier with the wash on the bone coloured flat plates on this vehicle, so might re-do the older ones another time.

While I had the chance, I did the black basecoat on the Eldar Warwalkers too, so that they had plenty of time to dry but I've not had chance to make a start on painting them up yet.

On top of all that, we managed to squeeze a 1,000pt (2 x 500pt players) game in for a bit yesterday afternoon which let me try out my Brotherhood of the Forge. I really enjoyed getting to use the Sisters of Battle codex, especially since I've not looked at it at all during 6th edition. And also the fact I bothered to read the basic Sister's infantry Act of Faith again and read the bit about re-rolling 1s to hit in shooting and assault.

So... the Brotherhood of the Forge will take to the battlefield on Monday night!

SB

April Painting Pledge - Eldar Vehicles - Progress #3

Morning folks.

Another progress update from me last night. I managed to get a fair chunk of work done on my Eldar Falcon. Got the brass and bone areas painted up whilst I had the chance to and made some progress on the Falcon turret.

Tonight's job will be to finish off the Falcon completely by painting the cockpits, assorted Gems on the hull and weaponry, touch up the black areas and then give the entire thing a wash.

Hopefully I can blast through that bit quite quickly and get onto basecoating the War Walkers and leave them to dry overnight. It's a shame as if I get the Falcon done, I could make good progress on the War Walkers - I should have basecoated them at the same time as the other vehicles so they were ready to go straight onto.

Who knows, maybe I can get this month's painting done in a fortnight? HERESY!

If the unthinkable does happen and I manage to finish them, I've got myself a Dark Angels Devastator squad to finish off, an Immolator to paint and various bits to build, so there'll be a Painting Pledge Plus, later on this month.

Byes!

April Painting Pledge - Eldar Vehicles - Progress #2

Morning folks!

Productive weekend of hobbying for the most part, I managed to get my 3 Wave Serpents painted up fully, apart from the guns as I'm planning on doing them as one big batch later on for all the vehicles.

So yeah, these are done now. Not completely happy with them as the large flat bone coloured areas look pretty messy so I'm thinking about touching them up when I've finished the Falcon.

Speaking of which, I got my Falcon basecoated black last night and then while I had 10 minutes spare in the morning today I got the chassis and metallic areas drybrushed with metal. I ran out of time for getting the brass areas finished though, so that's a job for another time.

Paint:

• 3 Wave Serpents
• 6 War Walkers
• 1 Falcon
• All the Wave Serpent, Falcon and Guardian platform weaponry.
  

Buy:

• Soul Grinder
• Black Spray

April Painting Pledge - Eldar Vehicles - Progress #1

Morning folks.

In between errands and jobs at home last night I got an hour of painting on my Wave Serpents in. I got a bit fed up in the end and didn't make it onto the third Serpent's wraithbone sections because I slowly added more and more bone areas to the main vehicle chassis.

This is after I said I would never paint bone armour again after doing all my Deathwing! So as I've painted, I've gone back and re-done some panels to be bone to try and break up the black sections a bit.

Next thing to do tonight is to get the bone areas done on the 3rd Serpent and then make a start resetting the black areas. Hopefully if I can make good speed with that then I can roll straight onto getting them washed up and leave them overnight.

Last thing is whether I want to add some detail on the panelling. I've seen lots of people do the thorns and vines design on the sides of vehicles - so maybe, depending on how I feel at the time.

I'm going to leave all the weapons until the end and do a batch of them all at the same time, possibly buying myself some Army Painter spray to get the job done quicker.

That's all for now chaps! Hopefully I can get the Wave Serpents finished by the weekend and make a start on the Falcon.

SB

April Painting Pledge - Eldar Vehicles

Morning folks!

It's the start of a new month so that means a new painting pledge! Having over-run February into March, I managed to claw some progress back and get them finished on time. Which leads me onto my next endeavour to "finish" an army off (for the time being).

This month's line up involves all my Eldar vehicles, which I'd been dreading painting for ages because they're vehicles and also really spindly and fragile. Even whilst I was getting them prepped half the stuff broke off and got re-assembled.

 

In here we've got 3 Wave Serpents with magnetised weapon turrets, a Falcon with a magnetised turret weapon choice, 6 War Walkers (4 with 2 x Scatter laser, 2 with Scatter laser and Missile launcher combo) and then the weapons to go onto my guardian squad's weapon platform.

They're all following my Ulthwe colour scheme, so I'm hoping that the Wave Serpents and Falcon are quite quick to paint up, as the War Walkers and weapons are going to be pretty awkward.

In addition to the painting pledge, I've got some hobby goals I want to get out of the way this month...

The first one is to sand the bases on my new Dark Angels Dev squad, all armed with plasma cannons from the Dark Vengeance sets. I'm trying to retro-fit my DA army to have plasmas where possible and thanks to a good deal off a bitz site, they seemed a logical inclusion. So these guys also need spraying and MAYBE become a stretch goal to get finished this month.

I'm quite excited to use them once painted, which means they'll all die to over-heating on the first shots fired.

On top of this, to get things ready for next month's painting pledge, I need to get my Necron reinforcements, from when their new Dex came out, sprayed up ready to be painted. I'm planning on sticking to the original Terminator style colour scheme for these guys, since that's what my old army is painted up as - so they'll hopefully be quick to paint up once sprayed!

There's also a Ghost Ark, Catacomb command barge and an Overlord to get done. My only worry for these guys is making the vehicles look good. My older Necron monoliths look a bit shabby now looking back on them, so what I do for the new vehicles will probably end up getting applied to the Monoliths when I re-do them.

Paint:

• 3 Wave Serpents
• 6 War Walkers
• 1 Falcon
• All the Wave Serpent, Falcon and Guardian platform weaponry.
  

Spray:

• Dark Angels Plasma Cannon Devastator Squad
• 1 Imotekh
• 1 Trazyn
• 1 Cryptek
• 1 Overlord
• 10 Tesla Immortals
• 5 Lychguard with Voidblade and shield
• 1 Ghost Ark
• 1 Catacomb Command Barge / Annihalation Barge

Buy:

• Soul Grinder
• Tyranid Additions
• Black Spray

That's all for now folks, busy busy month ahead it seems!

SB

March Painting Pledge - Chaos Space Marines - Completed!

Morning folks!

At the start of this month I set myself the goal to try and finish off my Chaos Marines from Dark Vengeance, to try and piggyback on my enthusiasm for the Chaos Daemons codex. Considering I didn't get any painting done for 2 weeks in the middle of the month AND over-ran on my Dark Angels last month, I've managed to scrape through and get them done.

After my previous posts where I fretted about what scheme to paint them up as, I eventually conceded on Word Bearers to tie in with my cultist and Daemon emphasis - and partly because I was fed up of black armour after painting my Ravenwing.

I didn't post much progress through the month as I was painting them as 1 singular batch, where one night I'd do the metal work, next I'd start on the armour, etc. and it's been really slow going through the month. But they're done, wooooo!

Chaos Lord. Chose to keep the cape black and use gold as sparingly as possible to pick out key details. Chance are he'll never get used much since I don't like Chaos Lords much.

Chosen with Lightning Claws. Or "Bane" as I like to call him.

AND MY AXE! This guy was a bit weird to paint since he's got like a tongue-tube respirator thing, so I wasn't sure what to paint that as, so I left it as a cable.

Chosen Champion, he looks pretty cool as a Word Bearer character if I were to have swapped the helmet in his arms for a book or something. Also just noticed on this picture he's got a massive grey smudge on his boots.

Chosen with Bolters. I would like more of these figs to flesh out the unit with some stuff that's not so bloody expensive in points!

This guy is one of my favourite chosen models, I really like the pose and everything about him.

Mr Hellbrute. I chose to paint all his pipey areas and under armour as flesh, rather than the GW way, mostly as I see him as a giant Obliterator or a massive mutated Chaos Marine.

Close up shot of one of my Cultists. I've painted these guys in the same colours that my Manutian Imperial Guard are (grey fatigues, black armour) and then picked out details in red and silver to match the Word Bearers element of the army. I really love these models.

Group shot of all the Cultists. I didn't have the patience to take a picture of all of them in smaller groups since as it was early morning, the lighting was all over the place.

Group shot of this month's painting pledge. Time to play "SPOT THE FALLEN"!

So overall, this month was a bit challenging mostly down to the amount of fiddly horrible detail on Chaos models which meant it was a right chore for speed painting. Plus, the fact I stuck to my guns of painting the lot as one batch, rather than doing individual units.

However, after finishing it and doing this writeup, I'm kinda glad I got to paint these as they're really cool models. They might not get much gaming time (if ever) but they were really enjoyable to paint up.

Paint:

• 1 Chaos Lord
• 6 Chosen Chaos Marines
• 20 Cultists
• 1 Hellbrute

 Buy:

• Chaos Daemons Codex and Psychic Cards
• 20 Bloodletters 

Right, that's all for this month folks. Next month's pledge will be set at some point next week and hopefully I can make some early progress on it over the bank holiday weekend.

Bye for now!
SB

March Painting Pledge - Chaos Space Marines

Morning all!

So I've over-run a bit into March already but I'm hoping I can claw the time back over the space of the month. Anyway...

This month I was a bit unsure what to go with and had two options - a load of Eldar vehicles and weapons or Dark Vengeance Chaos Marines. I figured I would try and get the Chaos stuff out of the way to coincide with the release of the Chaos Daemon Codex and have Chaos themed month.

Last night I packed away the Dark Angels bits I had painted up and dragged the Chaos stuff out of the box it was in.

I'm still not quite sure what legion to paint them up as, although I've got an Abaddon conversion somewhere in Black Legion paintscheme, along with a Khornate Daemon army to ally alongside them so that muddies the water a bit.

These are the ideas I've got for paint schemes anywho (and bit of a "why I'm reluctant" on each):

• Black Legion - I've got Abaddon already done, severed heads on my Deathwing bases are Black Legion, and the Daemon Prince from my Daemon army has black legion armour. It's not too much of a stretch to have BL elements in the army if they're renegades though.

• Alpha Legion - I like the idea of Cultists. I'm not too keen on a Turquoise scheme as I think it's a bit similar to my Dark Eldar army. Plus, I can't imagine Alpha Legion using certain aspects I like of the Chaos Marines - such as Forgefiends, Terminators and Raptors. They probably do use them, but to me they're not units I'd associate with Alpha Legion.

• Fallen Dark Angels - Idea behind this they'd be the Darker Green colour I used for Cypher and lead by him as a Dark Apostle. Only problem is it's more green... Although it'd make for some cool conversions.

• Word Bearers - They're allying in with a Daemon army, so it'd make the most sense for summoning lots of Daemons yeah? Again my only issue with this is the similarity to painting lots of red Khorne Daemons. Although it would tie them together visually and other than my Daemons, I don't have a red themed army.

There's plenty more scope for Custom schemes and everything else, but I'd like it to tie in with Daemons and the possibility of being lead by Abaddon.

Right, so that's that sorted... Onto this month's hobby pledge!:

Paint:

• 1 Chaos Lord
• 6 Chosen Chaos Marines
• 20 Cultists
• 1 Hellbrute

 Buy:

• Chaos Daemons Codex and Psychic Cards
• Bloodletters

 I still need to buy the actual Chaos Space Marines codex, but I figured that can be for another time once I've painted the army up and looking to where I can expand.

That's all for now folks... Let's see what I can get done and try and decide on a paint scheme pretty sharpish!

SB

February Painting Pledge - Overdue... but complete!

Morning folks.

After dragging my heels a bit the last few weeks with painting, I tried to make a final push towards the end of the month to finish off my Dark Angels. I was away for some time over the weekend but managed to get the majority of the Deathwing done over Friday night / Saturday morning and then finished the bases off this morning.

So, I've eaten into March by 5 days, but all my (current) Dark Angels are finished. I've plans for adding a Plasma Cannon Devastator squad in soon but that can wait for a bit.

I think the Dark Vengeance terminators are cracking models, lots of little intricate detail and it's tempting me to get more in the future to split the parts between different squads and give me more ranged fire.

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex

That's all for now, but I'll be posting up my March pledge tomorrow and see where we're heading from there.

Cheers!
SB

February Painting Pledge - Librarian Complete

Morning folks.

I've had a lothargic middle of the month when it comes to painting. The hope was (a few weeks ago) to get a unit done each week and the more awkward ones over a week and a bit. However, that fell on it's face after playing in an Inter-Club tournament and needing a bit of time away from hobbying to chill afterwards.

However, last night I thought I would make one last push for my February painting pledge and got my Dark Vengeance Librarian painted up.

He's an ace model. It's just a shame that he's so intricately put together it's hard to convert him too well (although I'm sure plenty of people have).

As for painting, the only things I'm not too happy with is a bit of a sloppy wash on the back of his robe where a patch of Nuln Oil collected on a flat area. And also the chest piece robe thing, the Gold doesn't really stand out too well from the Red of the back.

Either way, he's done now and ready to start flinging mind bullets around all over the place, alongside his terminator armoured Librarian brother from phase 1 of the Deathwing in 2011.

Overall, I think I've done pretty well to get close to finishing the pledge as it was all infantry and a few fiddly characters with lots of details. On top of that, I spent days umming and aahing over what Green to use on the power armour.

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex

So as it's the 1st of March, the list above is incomplete, which means those 5 Deathwing are going to roll onto March's list - alongside whatever was going to be on there in the first place. So March just got a bit more crammed.

I've still not decided exactly what's going to be in March's list. The options are....

Eldar:

• 6 War Walkers
• 3 Wave Serpents
• 1 Falcon

Chaos Marines:

• Chaos Lord
• 20 Cultists
• Hellbrute
• 6 Chosen

The Chaos Marines are probably the easier option in terms of painting (and more enjoyable), but I've still absolutely no clue what colour scheme to use for them. Possibly Black Legion as I have a converted Abaddon in a box somewhere.

That's all for now! I'll post up on Monday with March's pledge.

SB

February Painting Pledge - Tactical Marines and Captain Complete

Morning chums and chumettes!

I had a realisation on Thursday night that February is swiftly drawing to a close and that I'd not painted for about 2 weeks... This left me with 5 Terminators, 10 Tactical Marines, a Captain and Librarian still on the painting pledge list. Not good!

After this I thought I'd go on a bit of a painting bender over the weekend in the hope to clear as much as I can. I managed to get the 10 tactical marines and Captain completed and was hoping to carry on to get the Librarian done last night but I was too tired to carry on once I'd finished the bases on the completed stuff.

So here's some pics... Sorry for the bad lighting, I took them this morning before coming to work:

Bolter man. Only thing I'm not happy with is being sloppy with the wash on his leg armour - think he's the worst of the bunch though.. so meh.

Mr. Veteran Sergeant man with his plasma pistol and motor sword.

Plasma brothers. I could do with buying a looooooooot more of these. At the minute, my other tactical squads are Flamer / Missile (from Black Reach) and it would also be much cheaper way of an all plasma cannon Devastator squad.

Hold still lads... Group shot! (took without the flash, so it's a bit yellowy). But they look really cool all ranked up together.

Dark Vengeance Captain Whateverhisnameis. Wasn't sure what colours they used for his robes and things, so I just went off on my own. Red and gold EVERYWHERE.

So that's my lot from the weekend. As I said earlier, I've still got 5 Deathwing and a Librarian to paint up with 3 days left to go of February. I can't imagine I'll get the Deathwing finished, but if I can finish off the Librarian and at least start on the Deathwing armour layers (takes ages) then I'll be happier over running slightly into March.

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex

Bye for now folks!

February Painting Pledge - Ravenwing and Chaplain Complete

Morning chaps!

After not doing any painting all week I found myself having a flurry of activity on Friday and Saturday night. I've now got 1/3rd of my painting pledge for the month finished and hopefully I can plough on with the rest through this week.

First up are my Dark Vengeance Ravenwing bikers. Now these guys are covered in all sorts of details, winged fronts to the bikes, purity seals and a different back "fin" wing design to the older Ravenwing Bikers.

So in other words, I don't feel like they'll blend into the rest of the bikers I have properly... the hope is to get myself another set of the Bikers and use them as a Ravenwing command squad, but this'll be at a later time. Ideally I would convert the middle biker to be a standard bearer and the robed Sergeant into an Apothecary.

Whilst I was waiting for the wash on the Ravenwing to dry I thought I would make a start on something else and wasn't really up for painting loads of layers of bone on the Deathwing, or starting on the tactical marines so I grabbed the Dark Vengeance Chaplain and started work on him instead.

To be fair, there's not a lot of exposed armour on this guy, so to me it looks like I've just left his armour un-painted, as the bulk of the model is the cloak, details covering the shoulders or the front tabbard thing. Either way, I'm really pleased with this guy (apart from a black splodge on the back of his cloak) as I was worried with him being a limited edition model whether I would actually get round to painting him.

Also, the back smoke chimneys I didn't realise until I looked in the Codex last night - Asmodai's ones give off grey ashy smoke rather than flames. But I think I did enough grey / black drybrushing on those areas to make it more smoke than flame.

I think the model looks really nice, but the sheer amount of model that's covered by robes and cloth annoys me. It'll be the same with the Captain and Librarian too, although their armour colours will be easier to spot no doubt.

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex

So, this weeks plan is to finally decide whether to paint my Tactical marines in the darker green armour I used for Cypher and then make headway with them.

The hope is that I can get the tactical marines and Captain done (since they're majority same colours) and dusted over the space of a week, then spend the remainder of the month on the Deathwing and the Librarian as a final treat.

Looking good this month folks, setting myself these goals is really helping to blast through backlogs - even more so when GW release new Codexes that I have to spend my hobby budget on, rather than new minis.

Cheers,
SB

February Painting Pledge - Cypher Complete

Morning folks,

I had an hour spare last night so I made a bit of progress on my painting list for the month...

When I finished off my Dark Eldar, I ran out of my most cherished painting posession - Badab Black. This left me in a situation as I'd heard initially bad comparisons between Badab Black and it's replacement Nuln Oil.

I'd originally thought about investing in some Army Painter dark tone "Quick Shade" but it would add a lot of extra time onto painting and it's hard to get time to varnish at home. Plus, I can't get it as easily at short notice, unlike GW materials.

Anyway... I got some Nuln Oil and figured I'd do Cypher as a test model, since if he turned out badly he could get stripped pretty easily or be left as is since he doesn't have to match up with an army.

It's easy to spot the big splodges on the bottom of the robe, but really bad on his left side gun pouch...

I realised when taking the pictures this morning that there's a splodge of Dheneb Stone on the inside of his right leg, but I've since fixed that.

Overall, Nuln Oil isn't the same as Badab Black, but it's close enough for me not to be fussed. It runs into crevices better, but doesn't coat the flat areas so well. In other words, I just have to be a bit more careful with how I apply it, rather than slop it on. Possibly having to do a re-wipe with a clean brush to distribute the blobs of Shade a bit better.

Also when painting Cypher I tried out using Orkhide Shade as a base for the armour, rather than Knarloc Green like my original Dark Angels stuff. I much prefer the darker armour as I've always thought my Green armoured DA looked a bit too much like Salamanders colours - so this might tempt me to go back and re-paint their armour at some point.

So he's done and checked off... and last Friday I bought the new DA codex (thoughts coming when I can read it properly!) so time to tick stuff off the February list!

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex 

As for the rest of the list, I've basecoated them all in black undercoat (touching up the areas the spray missed)

And then while I was ploughing on I did a batch of Leadbelcher drybrushing on everything. I've since gone back and made a start touching up the Ravenwing armour.

The plan is to paint all these side by side, so this week's job will be the armour on everything and hopefully that's the bulk of the work done...

That's all for now folks. I've got to decide whether or not I want to paint my Tactical Marines and characters with the darkened green, which will then mean re-painting my Drop Pods, Terminator shoulder pads and more importantly, the older tactical marines.

Bye for now!
SB

February Painting Pledge - Dark Angels

Morning folks.

Last month I set myself a decent goal of getting the following completed:

• Paint 10 Hellions
• Paint Razorwing Jetfighter
• Paint Raider
• Spray Dark Vengeance Contents

After a bit of struggle to get going again after finishing the Hellions, and spending an hour out in the snow spraying Dark Vengeance I managed to tick off everything on the list. So I'm pretty pleased with that progress, but there's still a lot to go to try and clear this backlog.

This month I'm setting myself a bit of a bigger target since it focuses mostly on Infantry, so there's no vehicles to knock out quickly.

• Paint 10 Dark Angels Tactical Marines
• Paint 5 Deathwing Terminators
• Paint 3 Ravenwing Bikers
• Paint Dark Angel Chaplain
• Paint Dark Angel Captain
• Paint Dark Angel Librarian
• Paint Cypher
• Buy the Dark Angels Codex

Now... I'm hoping for this I can split them into 4 categories for painting in batches:

• Green Armoured Group - Tac Marines, Captain and Cypher
• Bone Armoured Group - Deathwing Terminators
• Black Armoured Group - Chaplain and Ravenwing
• Blue Armoured Group - Librarian

Hopefully once the armour stages are out of the way, which is the bulk of the work, I can then return to batch painting the details on them all as a group.

I actually started a bit early on these, getting the undercoat touched up on Tuesday night:

I then spent last night drybrushing everything with boltgun metal to get into all the cracks and crevices and means I don't have to repaint the armour again at a later stage. I debated for a while whether to do the armour or metal first since the armour is the majority of the model, but ended up doing it this way thinking it'd mean less re-painting of big areas that get covered in armour colour.

So... There's my plan for the month. Get my Dark Angels signed off and ready for gaming with the new Codex. Once I've read it I'll probably end up wanting to buy more stuff, but I need to try and be vigilant.

The only thing I'll allow myself to get is the new Belial model, but if I do, he's getting tacked onto this painting list so that my Dark Angels are fully finished (for the time being...).

We'll see how it goes this month, but I'll probably never want to touch power armour again for a while after this... Which is a bit discouraging since I've got the Dark Vengeance Chaos bits to do.

Bye for now!
SB

January Painting Pledge - Raider and Razorwing Completed!

Morning all,

After having a pretty lazy January aside from my Hellions, I managed to get in a furious few days of painting and hobbying.

Razorwing
First up, on Thursday night I decided I wanted to kick myself into gear and get as much as I could of the remaining January list completed. As well as that, I'd been itching to paint my Dark Eldar flyer for ages and always left it as a "just get this other unit done first..." carrot on a stick.


The Razorwing is a really nice model to paint, it's thin and sleek with a few very large plates. I enjoyed painting it up, especially good to ease me back in after a chunk of infantry.

Either way, I managed to plough through that in an evening whilst watching some films, so now it's ready to go on the tabletop!


Spraying Dark Vengeance
On Saturday afternoon, despite the heavy snow we had in Manchester the night before, I managed to clear a path in the garden, put some bin bags down to protect my gear and table and get some spraying done.

One of my aims this month was to get Dark Vengeance sprayed up, which I managed to juuuuust have enough black spray to do it.

Note to self, don't spend an hour outside in the snow spraying plastic men in future. My hands were raw afterwards. But bright side is, they're sprayed up and ready to go next month!

Raider
Ploughing on from the progress with the Razorwing and having a free night on Saturday, I went and got my final Raider to paint up.

Again, I made really good time on this, even though I had to stop after every step to compare with my older Raiders and make sure I got the colour areas correct. When I bought this one, the Dark Lance end was snapped off, so I had to convert it into a Disintegrator, so the plan is for this to be the Incubi wagon.

So with that Raider complete, that's my Dark Eldar army completely painted (until I buy more stuff on a whim) and also my January painting pledge completed!

To Spray:
- Dark Vengeance

To Paint:
- 10 Hellions
- 1 Raider
- 1 Razorwing

Over the next couple of days I'm hoping to make a start on February's pledge or maybe get some miscellaneous tasks out of the way that have been lingering for a while. Expect some updates soon!

Cheers,
SB

January Painting Pledge - Hellions Completed!

Brief update on my January painting pledge, now with 1 week left to run.

Over the weekend I tried to kick myself into gear and get the Hellions completed, rather than leave them and let them over-run into next month AGAIN.

Terrible picture taken in a rush... sorry!

Apologies for the terrible picture, but I can assure you, the painting is even worse than the picture. It's kinda made me regret my quick batch-painting approach, but at the end of the day I've got too much plastic crack lying around and not enough time to paint as well as I used to.

Either way, they're done. So chalk 'em off that list!

To Spray:
- Dark Vengeance

To Paint:
- 10 Hellions
- 1 Raider
- 1 Razorwing

I'm hoping to get an hour free where it's not raining or deciding to snow, so I can get Dark Vengeance sprayed up and worked on.

And in the mean time, I've got the Razorwing on my paint desk ready to be started, I just have absolutely zero motivation.

As for the Raider, I highly doubt that'll be this month. It'll probably slip into my February plans... But who knows, maybe I'll go on a painting bender this weekend?

SB

January Painting Pledge - Dark Eldar and Spraying

Morning folks.

Hot on the heels of yesterday's "2013 Hobby Goals" blog, I thought I'd follow up with my plan for this month's hobby pledge.

Last month I got a bit carried away, as I thought with being off from work that I would be able to get more done and I did to a degree, but then got really burnt out from painting and spent the second half of the month playing on the Xbox or PC instead.

To Spray:
- Dark Vengeance

To Paint:
- 10 Hellions
- 1 Raider
- 1 Razorwing

I'll leave it there. That clears off part of my Chaos and Dark Angels list, and wipes out my Dark Eldar backlog on the 2013 Hobby Goals.

Let's see how I fare this month!
SB