Primaris Lieutenant Calsius

 I don't paint Ultramarines often. As a chapter they don't appeal. But this sculpt, as part of the Conquest subscription, was too nice to pass up. I like the "right, enough of this nonsense" pose as he steps forward.

Basing deliberately black as I plan to eBay this to help offset the hobby spend this year, and want it to be available to anyone to add to their army.

 

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.

Guru Meditation

 "You should paint one of your space marines like an A500" said my friend, jokingly.

 "Alright" said I, non-jokingly. 

So here we are. I hope you like all the references to a much loved computer.

 

Definitely not a project to overthink, but it's nice to have lighter moments in the painting day than being super serious all the time.

Salamander

Playing with huge light sources, and wanted to try a bright blue light as a test for another project I'm working on. Pulled out a test Primaris to see if it was feasible. Then I wanted to add environmental lighting, too, then it all got VERY COMPLEX and I realised I had to paint green to make it work.

So here's an accidental Salamander!

Everything painted from the three primaries and just mixed up a bit.

And if you're interested in how these projects come together, here's some WIP shots where I tried to determine position of shadows, volumes etc.

 

Howling Griffon

We should catch up on a few of my recent projects, because I have been painting as my mechanism of handling stress and frustration, as apparently screaming into the void isn't actually an option.

So here's a simple challenge. Pick a chapter. Paint a chapter. In one evening. So I set the target of putting the brush down at two hours.

I'd never painted a Howling Griffon, and always liked the quartered scheme but was never brave enough to try it. Until now!

To keep colour interest, I've tried shading red with blue, and yellow with purple. I didn't want a vibrant yellow, more a beaten, war-torn yellow.

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.

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.

Space Wolves: Primaris Inceptor Group & Detail

With the three figures finished, here's the group shot of them in action.

Very pleased with the final result. Each one feels dynamic, unique and definitely a Space Wolf. The sergeant in the group has a helmet, as I wanted him to feel like the Primaris still maintaining some of the "traditional" standards of the marines, whereas the others have fully embraced their inner Fenrisian.

One detail that's almost invisible from the shots is the jump pack. I've attempted some OSL in here to give the feeling of hot jets ...

... then attempted to reflect that back on the surface below it.

It's got an audience of only me when it's on the table, but I'm pleased with the result.

Onto the next models. Just another 18 and then that's a boxset I started in July finished. How's that for speed! Right? Right?

Space Wolves: Primaris Inceptor 3

Here we are with the last Inceptor! This is probably my favourite due to the pose.

I didn't like the plastic rods that came with the figures. While they're a definitely upgrade on the old ones with air bubbles, they felt a bit amateur theatre wire work pose-wise. This has been glued very, very carefully onto the front of a crate - and balanced so it doesn't fall over.

The blue you can see on the crate is the reflection from the jet pack engine. I'll sort out a close-up shot later this week which may be more flattering.

Hopefully this has captured a feeling of jumping over obstacles and landing on the charge.

Space Wolves: Primaris Inceptor 2

Edging ever closer to a full unit, here's the second fellow. This one's positioned to be dropping onto an ammo crate. I'd forgotten how tricky it is painting faces with this much detail on this scale. It held up progress quite a bit.

Took a little longer on the photos this time, and feel they've come out better. Always room to improve, but the colours are spot on.

Space Wolves: Primaris Inceptor

I misplaced October. How careless of me.

A couple of weeks away and an unexpected bout of conjunctivitis ruled out most of my October painting. Turns out if you can't focus on the figure in front of you, painting is basically impossible. Happily that's in the past and we can move back to a focus on painting.

Let's start November correctly instead, shall we? Here's my completed Primaris Inceptor Sergeant to get things moving.

Fun things on this model include the OSL effect on the jump engines and weathering. So much weathering. Not-so-fun things are the massive guns, I really struggled with these and couldn't quite make sense of them and remain unsatisfied with what I achieved. My base red isn't right for trying to highlight into yellows, then I did a poor job executing it, so it will be reviewed for the next one.

I realised after finishing it up that this isn't meant to be the Sergeant model, as those have a slightly different armour shape in front of the face - but there you have it. This shall be different, because it can.

The rest of the squad are on the table and getting close to completion. That should keep me busy over the next week.

I ATEN'T DED

To borrow from the wonderful Granny Weatherwax, I ain't dead - but where on earth did the past few weeks ago?

Things have been happening, I promise. But time has not been kind - with family and work taking priority and the hobby time falling by the wayside. All positive, after I passed probation at my new work and took on more responsibility to keep me out of mischief.

Some painting has happened and my Primaris Inceptors have started to come together slowly.

They've performed reasonably well on the field of battle too. Their ranged fire has been wiping out Death Guard and Tau alike, but then they've failed miserably in close combat.

Alongside this, a friend who doubles as a very good photographer came to visit and gave me some quick pointers on getting all of a figure in focus - so here's my Ancient standard bearer again with a little more clarity.

I'm going to redo the "FENRIS" wording on the banner, finally add a wolf head decal to it as well, add more depth on the beard and add something to the right shoulder as it feels quite flat - but this feels like a more accurate representation of the miniature I see in front of me, than the one in previous pictures.

Couple of months ago I backed the beautiful looking Astropolis II Kickstarter to feed my sci-fi civilian habit, and all the models arrive this week. It's an overwhelming quantity and they're all glorious. I haven't a clue where to start and don't care.

54 miniatures and 4 crates if you're counting. It's projects like this which excite me and terrify me in equal measure!