Attack Bike

Shame on me for neglecting the blog for a month. There's some catching up to do!

One of the models I received with the Conquest magazine last year was an attack bike. I don't know how it plays on the battlefield, but I really liked the model, but felt it needed more character. Loaded it up with stowage, to give the feel of a long-range patrol, and away we go!

 

Librarian & Iron Priest

 Part of clearing my backlog is building out the Space Wolves army that's languished on my shelves. There's a nice mix of older and newer models in there. Here's two of the characters, a finecast Iron Priest who is missing the robot claw as I couldn't find it, and a Primaris Librarian.

 Trying to paint quick NMM-ish on both models was good fun, and for a few hours work over two evenings I'm happy with the outcome and have a few more army options.

 

Thunderhammer & Storm Shield

In my horrifyingly large backlog, I have a lot of Space Wolves. This year I've resolved to paint a lot of them in preparation for playing 9th Edition when we're allowed to socialise with other humans. For this squad, I was playing with bringing the "Craftworld-style"to the tabletop units, trying to balance quality vs speed vs visual impact. They're far from my neatest work but I like the look of them and how the colour comes through.

Primaris Repulsor

I haven't done much with my Space Wolves since our group stopped playing 8th edition. But this model was too nice to pass up. It's not the best example of my painting, but I'm happy with it for practice on colours, and completing a chunky vehicle in a few hours.

Things I would improve:

Spending more time on the OSL effect. I tried a couple of times before settling on this. It's not very accurate, but it conveys the effect. My attempts to make the light brighter just washed out on the surface, with lack of contrast and I couldn't find a satisfactory way of doing it. Something to practice.

Freehanding the runes. These are transfers, carefully applied, but I wasn't brave enough to try it on a gradiented surface. If I got it wrong, I'd pull my (metaphorical) hair out trying to correct the mistake.

More careful assembly. Couple of wonky donkey edges on this tank if you're looking hard enough. Definitely not a fault of the kit, but of the assembler.

Frozenfang

Phew. So much to cover.

Firstly, I think the mojo is returning. This was an enormous amount of fun to paint and really fired my brain to get the brushes going on a regular basis again. Firstly, I think we can agree it's a futuristic warrior with a viking feel, but obviously not a Space Wolf - as that would be an IP infringement.

This is also my first proper competition piece. I'm not talking about putting something in my local GW window to try and improve the number of entries, but an honest to goodness painting competition - Scale Model Challenge, or simply SMC as it's better known. I left it late to stop dawdling and pick a modelto paint, but the power of fear and a looming deadline appears to have inspired me to get my act together.

I picked up a highly commended in the Fantasy standard category for this piece.Which is more than I expected, and a cherry on top of a brilliant weekend at SMC.

I tried to use a little blue in most of the colour choices to convey the sense of cold. The only item that isn't done that way is the wolf pelt, which is a little warmer grey than other parts of the model.

The sculpt from Joaquin Palacio is just gorgeous. Honestly. Painting this was joyful.  The only frustration I had was the fragility of his extra-long braids and top knot. "Where?" you ask, well they're on my workbench because the top knot snapped off and I couldn't get the braids to fit well - so worked around their absence. Hopefully that isn't noticable.

There are lots of areas where I can improve and, from talking with other painters, I already know what to do better/differently on the next piece. So back to the workbench!

Space Wolves: Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought #2

Fifth and final dreadnought of my little adventure in painting large robots.

This is probably my favourite of the lot. The addition of a wolf standard gives him a little extra height and character. Quite a journey to get all five of these beauties finished up in the last month, alongside everything real life throws at you. Delighted to have them on the table though!

Space Wolves: Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought #1

I love the new Primaris Redemptor dreads and actually started this before all the others posted up. They're significantly larger than the oldschool dreads, with all these enormous flat surfaces. After painting it up in a pretty flat grey scale with dark up to light, I realised more colour was needed to make it visually interesting. So it's here I started playing with glazing reds and then glazing blues over the top of that.

Painting freehand remains a challenge to me, so I used transfers as my "outline" and then painted over the top. Keeping the transfers as they come off the sheet wasn't viable, as my yellows are a little darker than the default. Other areas are my attempted freehand, riffing on the spiky theme present elsewhere on the model.

Adding weathering to guns is enormous fun. It's over-emphasised because on this scale of miniature I felt it needed that. Then after that, it's just a case of keeping the painting neat and tidy on the rear, which has so much pleasing detail.

And there he is! He's big and angry, and all mine. I bloody love dreadnoughts.

Space Wolves: Dreadnought #3

Now the triumvirate is complete. Here's the last of my three oldschool dreads.

Big fan of the intricate scrolls and battle honours on the front panels. Lifts the model from a casket to something with a little character. Which is much needed.

I magnetised all the arms I could find, and here's the selection in full.

Pleased with the results of these three, and it was nice to get something else out the grey mountain and erm ... paint it grey? Alright, there was a little yellow in there too.

Space Wolves: Dreadnought #2

When you're on a roll, you're on a roll I guess, so here's a second one off the production line.

He's a fairly functional fellow, and not much in the way of fancy highlights. We're looking at tabletop and expediency here. But there's always time for a little heat weathering on the weaponry.

I plan to come back and add a banner to the back of this guy and have it hanging from the skulls. But that's lower down my to-do list right now.

Pleased with how the colour transitions worked, and find myself wishing I'd pushed the yellow even darker in the shadows now.

Space Wolves: Dreadnought #1

The last couple of weeks have been super busy, but I've taken a lot of pleasure in working through an unexpectedly large collection of dreadnoughts acquired over the last few years. You can mentally switch off, work through them, and still achieve a reasonable result.

So here's the first dreadnought finished! Many years ago there was a little accident with my original Assault on Black Reach model, and he lost a leg. Whoops. Small remodeling required to look damaged but still combat capable.

The weapon arm is magnetised so it can be swapped out depending on what I need.

Barrels added to give the impression he's staging a last stand in front of scenery. I'd like to return to this and make a diorama in the future.

Hobby Bingo 2018

I joined in the Hobby Bingo challenge in 2018 but frankly it was a bust by the time we closed December. 2018 was a hard year to finish, after such a bright start.

However, some of the challenges were completed! Every title is clickable through to the original post ...

Play and Paint a Model For an Army or Game You haven't Played in Over a Year
Guild Ball Morticians had Veteran Graves and Vileswarm added. I do miss playing this game.

Paint All the Models in a Faction Starter Box
Primaris Marines from the Dark Imperium box. This isn't quite a faction starter box, but it's equivalent - so I'm claiming it!

Paint a Model and Use a Technique You Haven't Mastered
Shadespire Ironskull's Boyz, using NMM copper.

Buy a Model and Paint it Within 48 Hours
Attended Banshee's painting workshop in March, and by the end of the weekend I'd painted the bust that came as part of the course.

Paint a Model in a Color You Don't Normally Use
Word Bearers. I've traditionally stayed away from reds, as mine ended up too pink - but I changed it around and pushed into the shadows for depth, and it worked quite well. So well in fact my daughter practically has a whole army of them now.

Make Something That's Not For the Battlefield
Love my sci-fi vending machines and, while they're part of a larger piece, they meet this requirement admirably. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only a nice row of chocolate bar dispensers.

Finish Painting a Model That's Been in Your Do-Do Pile For a Year 
Norsemen from Hasslefree were a purchase from ... 2016! So nearer two years on the painting pile, but we got there.

However, that's a very poor seven from a potential 25. I plan for 2019 to be a better year on this front.

Space Wolves: Primaris Hellblasters

Here's the Hellblasters to finish up the Primaris Marines from the Dark Imperium box.

This has taken way, way longer than I wanted - and there has been a good mix reasons and excuses for not wrapping them up earlier, but they're finally out the way. I'm happy with how these guys turned out, but painting in batch does mean you repeat the same errors on 20 figures simultaneously. That's a little demoralising. Next time I'd complete a test figure to 100% before diving in on the whole set - but that's what blind enthusiasm gets you.

I'll post up a few groups shots when possible, as they should look pretty good all on the table.

Space Wolves: Primaris Intercessors Squad #2

So, here's more Intercessors. Yep, definitely more of them.

That's all the standard troops done now, so just the Hellblasters to go. Nearly there!

Space Wolves: Primaris Intercessors Squad #1

It was important for me that all the models in the Primaris force should have different heads. This did make batch painting helmets impossible, but has added a nice feral feel to the force.

I'm pleased with how a few of the faces turned out. Always room to improve, but Ginger Gingersson in the shot above just worked super well.

Space Wolves: Primaris Lieutenants

Fatigue has set in with Space Marines now. Batch painting 17 of them has been draining me and I didn't realise it. But we're onto the home stretch now.

Space Wolves: Primaris Captain

I sorely want to be painting other things now, but have a need to get the Space Marines wrapped and back on the gaming table. So here's the first in a run of tabletop-ish Marines to see that happen.

Grey Horde: February 2018

Bought: 0
Sold: 14 Dark Eldar Kabalites
Painted: 10 Word Bearers, 6 Vending Machines, 1 Sportscaster, 1 Space Wolf, 3 Norsemen
Total: -35

That's right. A big, fat zero at the top for things I bought!

Not as productive as I wanted, but still a decent month. A little more cleared from the Cupboard of Doom, and a few more projects progressed well. Selling off another unit of 40k 3rd edition "why on earth did I buy this?" was good, but ... finally wrapping up projects? A warm glow of happiness. That's my Norsemen, my Sportscasters and a terrain project all finished up.

Space Wolves: Lightning Claws

When my larger, more complex painting projects are going a little slower than desired, I've been dipping back into my Space Wolves box* just to get something completed quickly. These won't be winning awards any time soon but it's nice to shift another model out the backlog and onto the table.

* Okay, it's a massive drawer of Space Wolves. Honestly, I swear they're multiplying when I'm not paying attention.