Noise Marines, Complete!
Progress continues on the Slaanesh Chaos Marine army, as I've completed and based 2 squads of Noise Marines. I imagine by the time I'm done with this army, I'll be sick of pink, black, and gold, but so far I like them.
I'd originally planned on doing urban basing on my army, with street markings painted on a gray paint/black wash base, but my wife found a big bag of lichen at a local overstock store, so I went with a more swampy/alien wilderness plan. I repainted the bases gray, gave them a liberal coat of Devlan Mud, and drybrushed a khaki green blend onto the stone to give it a vaguely unhealthy tinge. A little superglue and lichen, and the base is complete. Nothing fancy, but it pulls the army together nicely.
The rainbow array of topknots on the squad with sonic blasters makes them stand out, and it was fun doing the little touches like painting the various tubes connecting the blasters to the shoulder speakers. It gave me a chance to add a bit more variety of color to the army, and it makes those units stand out a bit more. I say "units" because I have a second unit in the midst of detail work now:
The priming job on this squad ended up being a lot rougher than I'd hoped, but the details aren't obscured, just pebbled in some spots. We'll see how they turn out. If nothing else, it'll be decent at arm's length. It's not necessarily meant to be an award winning army. Also, with an April 1 deadline, I doubt I'll have weather or time enough to strip and repaint them, so I'm going to go with what I have. They won't be horrible; just a bit bumpy/rough.
Also, work on my Terminators continues:
Not a huge change, but the gold really makes them pop.
And Now, the Ladies…
This past weekend saw me start work on the next-to-last set of minis for my hobby challenge list, the old-school Daemonette models I'm using as Lesser Summoned Daemons. When I set them down to paint them, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. Was I going to make them more flesh-toned, like my Daemon Prince? Or did I want to paint them more like the hatch art on my Rhinos? I decided to go with the latter, so I mixed up the same purplish tone and went to town. It's a blend of Vallejo Game Color paints - 3 parts Pale Flesh, 3 parts Skull White, 2 parts Squid Pink, and 1 part Hexed Lichen. Painted on top of Dheneb Stone (my go-to foundation paint for painting light colors on black priming), it still pops nicely. After that, I washed the skin with Leviathan Purple and put my Daemonette Skin color down again, with occasional highlights made by mixing in a little more Pale Flesh.
The hair/tentacles and nipples were painted with a different blend - 2 parts Hexed Lichen, 1 part Pale Flesh, 1 part Skull White, and 4 parts Glaze Medium. The hair was then washed with watered-down Leviathan Purple, and then drybrushed lightly with the skin tone. The claws were painted with a 50/50 blend of Squid Pink and Blood Red, and then washed with Leviathan Purple near the arm and Baal Red along the rest of the claw; this helped create a smoother transition from purple arm to pink claw. After that, the claws were drybrushed with Squid Pink. Cloth was painted in Bleached Bone (as were the horns), and all the bits to be painted gold were painted in Bestial Brown.
Like everything else I've been working on lately, I've deliberately kept these almost finished. I've been trying to make a lot of progress this month, so I've been pushing to get everything in a state of being ready for detail work, rather than fixating on getting single units completed. That gives me the next 2 months to focus on moving from unit to unit and doing the final touch-ups on a lot of models. Right now, my "to finish" list looks like:
- Chaos Sorcerer
- 18 Noise Marines (including 2 Noise Champions)
- 6 Chosen
- 5 Terminators
- 4 Rhinos
- 2 Predators
- Land Raider
- 10 Daemonettes
47 models. 2 Months. I don't see that as being a problem at all. I also have 3 Obliterators to paint somewhere over that time, but they're not as critical, since they're in the sideboard. They're still part of the Hobby Challenge, but I think I can knock them out near the end.
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.
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