DreadToberFest!

Just a quick shot of what I got painted this month. I'll do more photos, probably on the weekend, but wanted to get a "proof of life" photo up on the last day. I started with 8 built or mostly built Walkers, and ended up getting 4 of them painted, plus another that I hadn't included in my original group, which nicely hits the goal I had set for myself. They all still have more work I'd like to do at some point (particularly the Nurgle Helbrutes), but are absolutely good enough to put on the table.

DreadTober: A New Challenger Appears!

So, even tho it wasn't one of the Models I put forth at the start of the month, Sunday evening I got the urge to paint up the Librarian Dread that had been sitting around primed for, idk, a couple of years, probably. There's a lot of bits of touch-up and a few little details that want more work, but I'm more than content to put it on the table at this point. I'm also really not happy with the Force Weapon, but I'm sick of fighting with it, so it's staying like this for now.

I hadn't realized how bad my pot of Ceramite White had got until I cracked open the new one. The Mechanicus symbol was so much easier than it would have been.

The gems and lenses are all done with the GW gem technical paints, except that I just use Blood for the Blood God for the red, since it works and I don't have to buy another paint that way.

Not sure why the Librarian Dread has a parchment right where the Chapter Symbol should be shown. I just put the Crimson Thunder Chapter Symbol on the parchment instead

I also want to go back in and get some more definition on the sigils in the book. On the left is the Elder Sign, from some of the Cthulhu Mythos spinoff stuff, and the right is a Norse rune used for defense and protection.

I should have some paint on the SphinxFiend and the two Nurgle Helbrutes to show you by this weekend, and the Alpha Legion Contemptor Mortis is coming along nicely as well. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

DreadTober III: Leftovers Edition

Having just finished a couple of builds, I realized I didn't have any projects ready to go from scratch for DreadTober. So I decided to dedicate this one to finishing off some of my WiP Dreads/Helbrutes, some of which have been sitting around since early 6th Ed. Probably not going to get to all of them but I'm going to be finishing up at least some of the following (left to right, front to back):

• Two Converted Helbrutes for my Death Guard
• A Furiouso and an IronClad for my Crimson Thunder
• A Forgefiend for my generic/Dark Mechanicum forces
• Another Forgefiend for the Thousand Sons
• A Redemptor and a Contemptor Mortis for my Alpha Legion

Looking forward to getting some more stuff table-ready, and also to seeing what all y'all come up with. Y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Crimson Thunder StormTalon and IronClad

Death from the Skies has got me motivated to finally get around to adding on the Nephilim wings I got to my StormTalons. They're kind of halfassed right now, because I was hoping to use them in a Game today, but had to bail on that because debilitating headache. Oh, well, it meant that once I went back to bed for another 5 hours, I could take pics.

This dude is kind of pushing the limits of my cheapo lightbox. The other one looks basically the same, so I just took a pic of the one. I'm kind of tempted to try to break off the Missile Pods and remount them under the engines. I've seen some converted that way, and I really like the look, but I'm not sure I like it enough to justify the effort to do it retroactively.

I also got my IronClad, well, not done, but good enough to put on the table.

The mold lines on that Seismic Hammer are just hideous. I thought I'd got them, but apparently not.

 Shout-out to William Shakespeare for his Complete Works helping to bump the backdrop up a couple of inches so I could get more light in there. In the first couple of shots, the legs were completely invisible.

Trying a new technique on my black. I drybrushed the whole thing with Leadbelcher, more heavily from the top, and then ran several coats of Nuln Oil over it. A few of the bits need another coat or two, and it got a bit funky on the top where it was able to pool, but for the most part, I'm really happy with it. I believe I first saw the technique from Rob, but I've modified it a bit here, simplified it a little.

Gonna finish it off for today with some more shots of the basing. This is the first Model I've taken to (more or less) completion with my newer, more complex basing. I sorta feel like it still needs a little something else, but it's definitely a step up from my previous standard.

I think part of the issue here is that I ended up putting his feet in places that blocked some of the more interesting bits. I'm definitely liking the varied heights, tho.

Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

Changing Sides

Still trying to work up the motivation to really get into fixing the Kytan. But I wanted to take some pics because I just got enough room cleared off to set up my new Light Box. It's a cheapo plastic one held together with velcro, theoretically collapsible, but looking at the creases in the plastic, I'm really not sure how many setups and takedowns it'll last, so I'm just leaving it up for now. As I've seen a couple of people note with others, the fact that there are only LEDs on the top creates kind of harsh lighting. I tried to use my swing-arm lamp to mitigate that, but I think I need to move it closer. I still like the results better than what I was getting just on the table tho.

I made a Land Speeder Storm, and took all the dudes who are normally hanging off the side and made them into a Scout Squad, filling them out with a conversion based on an old metal Heavy Bolter scout who was missing his weapon.

That's the dude who's normally loading his Bolter on the back seat. I swapped him up to Gunner on the Speeder because I wanted to use the normal Gunner on a base, where his cool kneeling pose would be more noticeable.

The Squad as a whole, and a rear shot of the Sarge, showing off his Combi-Grav. The one dude got some walls on his base because I needed something to justify his super-crouched pose. I chose to keep them on 25mm Bases both since GW hasn't actually switched Scouts over, last I checked, and because it magnifies the size difference between them and the full Marines in Power Armour.

A few more shots of my favorite one, converted from the Speeder's Gunner. Didn't come out great because I moved in closer to get a better position for a single Model, but didn't have anything there to brace my hands on.

And these guys were sitting around, so I tossed them in as well. Gue'vesa Kroot Counts-As for my Tau Army, converted from some Catachans I got for a song and Kroot Rifles I picked up at a bitz swap. I'm not really a huge fan of the Fire Warrior and Kroot Models, so I'm doing Human Auxiliaries for those Roles instead. Got some Cadians converted up to count as Fire Warriors too, but they're already primed, so they won't photograph well until I get them painted.

Hopefully either progress on the Kytan or something painted next time. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Kytan Rising and other WiP

Some recent posts by Rob and Thor have inspired me to start kicking my basing up a notch or two, and the biggest beneficiary has been the Kytan Daemon Engine that I got a little while back. That said, it's also been slowing down building the thing considerably, because I couldn't just build it flat and then put it on the base later. Also, this is another place where I get sort of frustrated by FW. There are so many parts to the legs on this thing, and having to use super glue instead of plastic cement means that I have way less working time, so I'm having to do them in stages, checking the remaining bits with blu-tac as I do each one, to make sure that they'll actually both meet up at the hips when I'm done.

You can also see an Ironclad, some old Chaos Hounds that I'm rebasing to use as Flesh Hounds, and my attempt at getting something decent out of the awful Champion pose from the Wulfen boxed set. The Ironclad and Kytan have had cork used to build up some areas of the base, and then all of them had extra variation added by pouring/spreading on various consistencies of fine sand/Mod Podge (thanks for introducing me to that stuff btw, Thor!) slurry, since I hate working with spackling paste, which is the other cheap and easily available option I know of. Then I added coarser sand to parts, trying to break up the different areas of slurry, and once they're painted, they'll get either snow or grass powder and static grass added to break it up further. I'm also going to try to do a little stream across the middle of the Kytan's base.