Painting the Big Guys
Another week, another progress report! I've been working on getting my Land Raider and Terminators base-coated and ready for detail work. I've kind of switched up how I've been working. Instead of focusing on getting a unit completed, details and all, before moving onto the next model(s), I'm instead getting them all base-coated, cleaned up, and ready for detail work. So far, the plan has been working. While I don't have many units completely done, I have most of them in a state where I they are at least three-color legal and looking decent. When I get to detail work, I can bounce from model to model easily; if I get bored of painting Noise Marines, I can work on a Rhino or a Terminator. It's not necessarily an approach that I'd use with any army any time, but right now with this one it's helping me continue to make progress.
My Land Raider is looking suitably pink and mottled, and I've cleaned up the armor plates and started basing the gold bits in Calthan Brown. I don't think I'm going to put any art on this one - had I been thinking when it was assembled, I would have filed the flying skull off the door and left it flat for decoration - but it's still going to be an imposing brick of pink, black, and gold. I don't think it'll need too much help looking special.
The Terminators are all pinked-up, and I've taken the first two, cleaned them up, and painted the gold bits brown. Since I started with the two without helmets, I also went ahead and painted their faces (which are mostly washed out in this pic, thanks to the interaction of my iPhone and the magnifier light I was using). The lightning claws were originally going to be left plain blue and painted later, but since I wanted to do wet blending I decided to go forward with that. I'm still getting used to the technique, but I'm pretty happy with the results so far.
This week should see me getting the rest of the Terminators looking similar to these two, and then the entire army will be ready for detailing. Well, almost - I have a squad of 10 Daemonettes (as lesser daemons) to paint. You can see them in the background of the first picture, behind the line of prone Black Templar Terminators. I'm still trying to decide on a skintone for them, but I think I have it. If I can, I'm going to keep it similar to the tone I used in the Rhino hatch art for consistency's sake.
Tanks, With a Little Help from My Friends
The end of December and beginning of January have been pretty hectic due to work, which is why I've had little to no blogging activity, but the tempest is slowing down to a reasonable level, and I've been able to get some work done on my Slaanesh CSM army. Namely, I've been able to get some paint on tanks. I have all four Rhinos properly pinked up, as well as the hulls and turrets of my two Predators. I've also got the hatch art started, thanks to my wife. I can't freehand to save my life, but she's an artist by trade and did some quick pencil sketches on the hatches, which is a surprisingly small area for pencil work. I took her lines and started painting over them:
I'm going for Daemonette-themed pinup pics, and right now I have the flats done on them, as well as some metallic paint for the backgrounds. I might try to paint some finer details on them, or clean them up a bit, but I'm not sure yet - I'm concerned that I'll screw them up. Still, they're a damn good start, and much better than I could have done on my own. The tanks still need to have the metal bits (trophy racks, chains, hooks, smoke launchers, treads) painted, and some drybrushing grey on the black to give them some depth, but they're really coming along. Technically, they're painted enough to field in a GW tournament, which is a good start. Between these, the completed Daemon Prince, and the 18 Noise Marines/6 Chosen/Chaos Sorcerer in various stages of detail painting, I can actually put a (not quite completely) painted army on the table. I just have the Land Raider, 5 Terminators, and 10 Daemonettes to go for the main list, and some Oblits for the additional points - easily finished before the end of March.
Speaking of Terminators and pieces painted my friends, here's a gift I received from my friend Richard, one of my fellow hosts on Preferred Enemies:
A Chaos Terminator Lord for my army, complete with a Blissgiver whip. I assembled it, he swapped the stock weapon for a Dark Eldar Agonizer, and then painted it up wonderfully. It's not part of my original list, but it's a great companion for the unit of Terminators, and gives me an additional HQ option to play around with.
Thanks to the artists in my life, my army keeps getting better and better.
Rumors: 2012 Could Be an Expensive Year for Me
Well, if the rumors popping up online about next year's codex releases have any validity, next year looks to be a very expensive year for me. I've seen hints and bits and pieces that indicate that all three of my codexes may get an update next year, and that's on top of the rumored release of Sixth Edition 40K.
I'm not going to try to repost all the rumors here; they're all over Bell of Lost Souls if you want to search for them. I will give my impressions, though.
- Tau: More emphasis on the other races in the Empire is a good thing, I think, and the possible addition of the Demiurg could add another facet/option to the army. Hopefully, Tau will get HQs that change up what's scoring (although it's not a definite; I was surprised to not see anything like that in the Necron codex). New plastic Crisis Suit kits are an inevitability, but I hope the rules will allow me to still field my existing suits without having to pop the weapons off and change load-outs. I don't know what to think about the "Uber-suit" rumor, although having a Walker or a MC would be interesting. Finally, new vehicles are another inevitability, so I'm sure we'll see a Tau flyer or two (as rumored).
- Chaos Legions: Just as the 4th Edition CSM codex was a throwback to the first 3rd Edition codex (very barebones/stripped-down), the rumored 5th/6th edition Chaos Legions book sounds like a return to the second 3rd Edition codex, with all the flavor bits for each legion. If they can keep it balanced, this is a good thing. I'm liking what I'm hearing about the Mark-specific perks and drawbacks, as well as the various legion rules. A bit disappointed that there's little to no info out about my Chaos God of choice, though. Also, regarding a plastic Chaos Dreadnought kit: it's about damned time. That 2nd Edition metal kit is a travesty compared to all the wonderful dread-ness that's been released since.
- Black Templars: Not a lot yet, since the rumors just popped up lately, but they point to more emphasis on the horde nature of the army and the general anger levels of the Templars. The Rage USR shows up in a few places, as well as a rumor about rampaging dying Land Raiders. The long-serving Emperor's Champ character is intriguing as well.
Of course, the big question is: which book comes first? So far, I've heard that they're all the next book, which obviously isn't true. Other rumors put the Chaos codex closer to the summer release of 6th edition, as well as putting them in the new starter box. That seems likely to me. Otherwise, I'd love to see a new Tau book first, but I could live with either the Tau or the Templars being the next big release.
Slaanesh Daemon Prince Complete!
My Work-In-Progress Daemon Prince of Slaanesh is no longer a work in progress. It's done! Tonight, I finished up detailing the metallics, painting the base, and touching up skin tone in a couple of spots (especially in recesses). Here's a set of images to show how she turned out:
I'm still amazed that I managed to turn her out as quickly as I did. From priming to complete was 5 days, and that was 5 days mostly of squeezing in painting early in the morning or in small snippets at night. I'm normally a very slow painter, but when inspiration hits and I'm motivated (as seen in my MERCS minis, which I cranked out in a weekend while sick), I can turn out decent-looking models in a timely manner.
Next up, I have to finish detailing 18 noise marines, and then it's on to Chosen and a Sorcerer.
WIP Slaanesh Daemon Prince
Remember this mini, from March? I finally got around to priming her this weekend, and over the last two days I've started putting down color on her. On Sunday, I had her body basecoated in Dheneb Stone foundation paint (seen here with some Chosen that I'm also working on):
Last night (Monday), I started putting down colors. The shoulder pad, glove, and boots were done with Vallejo Game Color Squid Pink, and the wings and claw were painted in GW Warlock Purple. With the hair, I used my normal technique of applying a wash (in this case, Leviathan Purple), to be drybrushed with Warlock Purple later. I'd found my painting groove, though, so I didn't end up stopping there. I applied a Baal Red wash all over the model, and once it had dried I did an additional wash of Leviathan Purple over the wings and claw. Once that was dry, it was onto the skin tone.
Now, if I had to do it over again, I'd probably use a blend of flesh and pink for my skin basecoat, and I'll probably do that for my Daemonettes to make them more inhuman, but I started with GW Elf Flesh as my base, leaving the red wash in the few recesses and crevices. Once that was down, I then applied a general highlight of VGC Pale Flesh, followed by a more specific/sparingly-used highlight of blended Pale Flesh/Skull White. Her nipples are VGC Squid Pink blended with Vallejo's glaze medium to tone down the opacity a bit. Finally, I gave the wings and claws two layers of drybrush, first in Warlock Purple, and then in Squid Pink.
There's still work to do. The armor pieces have detail work to be done, her eyes need to be painted, the sword needs to be painted, I need to detail the belts, and I'd like to drybrush/blend up some bone on the horns and the claw-tips on the wings. Oh, and the base, of course, but it's easy (paint gray, wash black, drybrush gray, drybrush lighter gray). I'm pleased with how quickly I'm turning her around, though, after having the model in my collection for almost 2 years.
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