Hobby Grab Bag - Painting Contest & Another Blood Angel!

Hi all,

I've been a bit scatter shot hobby-wise again but I'm doing 2 (maybe 3) projects with a hard deadline of October 1st.

I've decided to participate in the Immortal Brush Competition at Strategies Games & Hobbies in Vancouver BC.  I'll be entering 2 categories for sure (5 man squad sci-fi/modern and 5 man squad fantasy/historical) and hopefully a 3rd (one of the large model categories time permitting).

For my sci-fi/modern entry I've decided to go a slightly different route than usual.  I'm going to take some figs that I speed painted awhile back and fix them up to a higher standard of painting.  I'll be starting with 5 of my space fascists from Wargames Factory's Greatcoat Troopers box.  I've been planning on these multi-use figures standing in for Bauhaus in Warzone and Viridians in VOID/Urban War, they could also work as Imperial Guard in Warhammer 40,000.
The picture below is how they looked when I pulled them out of my figure case this morning...not bad but definitely not paint contest worthy.  They'll probably get finished first because they represent the least amount of work.

Next up are 5 Celt Warriors from Warlord Games Celts box.  I've wanted to do historical gaming of this era forever but the amount of stuff I would have to paint has always seemed quite daunting.  Lately a few of my friends have discovered some skirmish level games that might work so and old idea has become new again!  These will get done second because I do want to get them finished and I think my best shot in a paint competition will always be "unit" categories because that doesn't seem to be where the elite painters enter.

And last up I am 90% done my next Blood Angel, the Librarian from Space Hulk.  This is just a continuation of my ongoing effort to get an actual Blood Angels army done in 2013.  I might actually also use the large model category in the painting competition to get a larger Blood Angels model done (like a dreadnought) but if that's the case I'll definitely have to run out and buy one this week.

There you have it, bit of a mess but I'm enjoying it!

-Jay

Sgt Lorenzo and 1st squad finished!

Sgt Lorenzo ended up taking me almost as long as the 4 troopers under his command to paint but I think he was worth it.  The sarge is a great looking figure with tons of fantastic Blood Angels iconography and I think he'll look amazing on the table top.

Now that his entire squad is done I thought I'd get them to all pose together for a group shot.

-Jay

The REAL firepower

No Terminator squad would be complete without an Assault Cannon armed trooper.

The assault cannon has been my favourite weapon in 40K for years, it's terrific at tearing up lightly armoured infantry and in different iterations of the rules it has even been effective against vehicles.

Next up Sgt Lorenzo and then it's time to get started on another unit.

-Jay

Knock knock....

Today the chainfist armed Terminator has joined the squad.  In the original background the chainfist was mostly intended as a tool for penetrating bulkheads and pressure doors but has since become possibly the most popular secondary Terminator weapon available.

Next up...Assault Cannon!

-Jay

The march of the Blood Angels continues!

Got my second Terminator done this morning.  No radical deviations from yesterday's fig but he does represent progress.  I've got to say now that I'm painting these my only regret is that the contents of Space Hulk weren't slightly more geared to making a second proper Terminator squad.  Having said that I'm still super-excited by how each figure is unique and different.

Looking forward to moving on to the chainfist armed figure next!

-Jay

My first Blood Angel terminator is done!

I'm using the Blood Angel Terminators I painted for Darren over the last year or so as templates/test models for my own figures.  The 2 most significant differences will be that mine are being based exclusively for 40K and will not do double duty in Space Hulk, and, I'm not painting my Librarian "Chapter Approved" colours.

My first model is one of my favourite storm-bolter armed figs from Space Hulk, the one who is crouched down and tearing up a deck plate.

I started off by priming the figure black and then after the primer was dry applying a light spray coat of Army Painter Red.  The armour was then given a wash of Agrax Earthshade before moving on.  The nice thing about the wash is it also draws your attention to areas of separation on the model and helps keep painting neatly.

Once that was dry all the metal was painted Leadbelcher and then given a Nuln Oil wash.  I also painted most of the iconography Dawnstone before giving it a Nuln Oil wash as well.  I decided on the grey tone for the skulls and eagles because in the original flavour text it mentions the icons being stone and it was typically some shade of grey in the original art.

After that I picked out some details.  Sybarite Green for the eyes with a narrow highlight of Necrotite Green through the centre.  All the blood drops were base coated Xereus Purple then highlighted Khador Red Base then washed with Agrax Earthshade before being given a final highlight of Khador Red Base.

So that is the start of my Blood Angels army.  I feel good about the colours and think I'll end up with a fairly cool looking army.

If anybody has any suggestions please feel free to send them my way.

-Jay

Everytime I think I'm out...they pull me back in!

Today I finally made a trip to the post office to make good on my lost painting bet with Darren awhile (quite awhile actually) back.

For the third time in three lost painting bets I painted one of his Space Hulk terminators for him and painting that figure made me realize it's been a long time since I painted some 40K figures and one army in particular.  First I'll do the cool hobby part and show you Darren's newest model and then those of you who are interested can read below about my new project.

Alright...

As I'm sure most of you who either follow this blog or know me personally realize I paint ALOT of models.  In my opinion I generally get them done fairly quickly and I seldom struggle to field full forces of finished miniatures in my games.  Having said that there is one army I have been saying I'm going to paint since about 1988 and yet I never get anything finished for it...The Blood Angels.

I don't know what it is, I've gotten at least a dozen false starts on the army and over the years I have painted 5 full Space Marine armies (all of which I was less interested in than Blood Angels) but I never quite get over the hump with Blood Angels.

So, I've decided between now and Christmas this year I'm going to get a decent size Blood Angels army fully painted and it's going to be my best painted GW army to date.  So I plan to actually drive myself to do this while simultaneously slowing down and taking my time with my painting.  I'm going to try painting the army a single figure at a time like RPG miniatures rather than assembly line style the way I usually paint armies.  I hope when I'm done to finally have the army I've always wanted, as well as having a force that is both more competitive in tournament play and easier to transport than my Imperial Guard or Adeptus Arbites army.

I'll be starting off by painting up a Terminator Squad made up of figures from the most recent edition of Space Hulk (generously given to me by my buddy Mark, thanks Mark!).  I'm also going to paint the Librarian from the set to give me my first character for the army.  Beyond that I'm going to pick things up one unit or character at a time and take my time doing the best paint jobs I can.

Wish me luck!

-Jay