World Eaters Tartaros Terminator with Lightning Claws

Another World Eater today, to add to the growing terminator squad. This one is decked out in twin lightning claws which in game go well with the armour type to try to get that sweep in. 

The painting follows the standard pattern that I've established for this legion, replete with the blue shoulder pads and the grime look that has accumulated in the recesses of the otherwise off-white armour. The blood for the blood god paint is dribbled over the claws and down the marine's side suggestive of recent action. Decals from the official range are on both shoulders and both shin pads here (roman numeral, along with the crossed chains which indicates a gladiatorial win against a fellow world eater). The black splotches were added with a sponge application in a similar manner to the dreadnought from dreadtober earlier in the year. 

The base meanwhile is relatively simple with technical paint and dry brushing to give it the overall effect. A black base rim rounds out the miniature - largely because I can't imagine it being another colour (let's not mention goblin green in the 1980s/1990s, okay?). 

Dreadtober 2024: Completed World Eaters Leviathan

The World Eaters Leviathan is done!

I genuinely love the final stages of painting World Eaters. To some it might seem like I've ruined a particularly crisp and nice paint job. I disagree. I set out wanting to have a battle worn and bloodied leviathan. The only way to achieve this is with weathering. And blood. For the blood god. The weathering features two toned grey and black speckles using a sponge applicator. I've made chips using silver inside of significant wear and tear to emphasize this aspect. The blood has been both painted and sponged on in a consistent manner to hopefully show some up close and personal work. This features most prominently on the chest (close range fire I suspect), and on the shins (he kicked his foes, clearly). There's a lot less blood on the rear of the miniature for obvious reasons (don't turn your back on your foes!), but the weathering features both wear and tear as well as explosive impacts on the rear. 

And for reasons I am unable to explain adequately, gravitons are green. Too bad. I've decided. 

Hope you've enjoyed following along with my Dreadtober leviathan project! I'm really pleased with the outcome here and I hope you've enjoyed seeing the progress week after week! Very glad I did this, and even happier with the end result. 

My original plan was to sell this miniature on eBay, but now I'm not sure! 

Dreadtober 2024: Leviathan with Decals

Progress report on my Dreadtober project: a World Eaters Leviathan. Here, I have got to the stage of applying all of the decals to the miniature. I can now get a really good sense of what the finished miniature is actually going to look like. 

The miniature looks very "clean" at this stage though. I am intending to make it a lot more mucky and stained with explosive barrages. Let alone liberal application of Blood for the Blood God to match up with the other miniatures in this particular allied detachment! It's certainly looking a lot better and even though I've been away, I am well on course to finishing this miniature on schedule - possibly even by the end of next week. Who knows. 

World Eaters Terminator with Power Maul

The conversion from yesterday is now fully painted! This is a World Eaters terminator decked out in the pre-heresy colour scheme for the legion, but also replete with a lot of dirt and blood to give it a grime filled, mid-action look. 

The decals are direct from the World Eaters range, and the blood is, of course, Blood for the Blood God which is simply amazing for this kind of work. I've applied it in both clumps of large gore, as well as splattering it across key areas in a lighter handed manner. I am very pleased with the vibe here and the theme. Even for pre-heresy, this is a nasty terminator who can readily be imagined bringing compliance in the only way that this legion knows how to do. Up close and personal without remorse or quarter. 

Dreadtober 2024: Leviathan based coated in World Eaters colours

Dreadtober continues! Progress has now included applying the base coat to the Leviathan dreadnought to bring out the legion identity! As can be seen, I've settled on World Eaters here. 

In addition to the base coat of blues, whites, and iron, I have also started to pick out the recesses using Guilliman flesh. This is deliberately sloppy in application. As well as going into the recesses of the armour, there's also a stain around these recesses which will accentuate the dirty / "in action" vibe that I'm aiming for with this miniature. 

The next step will be to get some World Eaters decals in place before progressing to some edge highlights and other fun stuff. 

Dreadtober 2024: Undercoated!

Dreadtober 2024 progress. It is Week 1. An undercoat has happened. 

That's this week's entire progress on the Leviathan Dreadnought!

And what progress it was. The spray out of the can started going a bit dribble dribble. As you can see from the image, the front armour plates have long streaks of white all over them! Oh no! It's not a complete disaster, but I've not had such a poor start in a while. Hopefully the base coat can correct this and I can get going properly soon enough!

Dreadtober 2024: A Leviathan Year

I have decided to bite the proverbial bullet! I'm hopping in to Dreadtober 2024 this year in order to try to get a dreadnought fully painted up! 

The dreadnought has got its legs together and is assembled. But will I be able to make sufficient progress on it over the coming weeks? I have my doubts. I will be going away which will severely limit progress and time available, so this will indeed be a real challenge. A really big challenge!

Painted: Emperor's Children Assault Squad

One fully painted Emperor's Children Assault Squad!

11 members, 2x power axe, sergeant with twin lightning claws, shields all round for the rest. 

The idea here is to take advantage of the Emperor's Children in build advantages and swing fast whilst getting into position rapidly. They will sit alongside the sun killers and an apothecary with a phoenix warden to make up a small, but capable, allied detachment for any of the main forces that I have. I'm tempted to purchase a second assault squad to make this into a full detachment, but that's a project on the back burner for the moment. Hope you like the squad and the colour scheme!

Half Squad: Emperor's Children

Behold, a half squad of Emperor's Children assault marines bedecked in a whole lot of decals. 

The sergeant has a pair of lightning claws with the body being made of resin, while the other marines all have standard armaments except for a power axe sourced from the Space Wolf range. Although the Space Wolves sound like they wouldn't mesh well with this legion, the ornamentation (jewel in the centre of the axe) remarkably works very well. The accent colour of green on the bases is representative of some of my mechanicus terrain and provides a nice offset to the regal purples, whites, and gold seen across the rest of the miniatures. 

Scratch Testing Emperor's Children

I have been experimenting with some scratch marks and making some elongated scrapes in this latest addition to the Emperor's Children.

On the shield are several long scrapes done by dragging a sponge with black paint across the surface and then filling in some of the interior with silver. The same has been done on the edge of the shoulder pad, but not nearly as streaked. 

I always get a bit confused whether to do black on the outside like I've done here, or whether to have silver on the outside and black inside for a deep scorch. I think that the black exterior looks good though, and it can be seen on multiple places, including the helmet which I think it suggestive of ducking an explosion nearby. This squad is rapidly nearing completion now. 

Emperor's Children Axeman

Thanks for stopping by. The painting of the Emperor's Children assault squad continues, with one of the two axe wielding marines of the assault squad complete.

I think what I like the most here are the scratched and accents in the dabbed black. This was done using the sponge technique and some cuts of silver applied to their very centre to suggest the scratches and markings going quite deep down. I like the decals as well - they really add a sense of the regal to the Emperor's Children and almost show off the legion's inner care about how they look on the battlefield. 

Painted Emperors Children Sunkillers Squad

The final painted Sun killers squad for the Emperor's Children!

The parts are sourced from a variety of places, but the basis is the Mark 7 power armour. Mixed in there are a few resin heads from the Heresy mark era, as well as the newer Forge World alternative heads. The las cannons are from the upgrade set, and the bases are a mixture of resin basing kit, random bits, and plastic bases from the Armageddon range.

Painting follows my standard formulation for Emperor's Children: Phoenician Purple base, Xerxeus purple layer, contrast purple for the recesses, gene stealer purple for the highlights, gold accents, iron belcher for the weapons and plenty of Nuln oil washing over stuff. Decals are sourced directly from the Emperor's Children sheet. 

Pleased with the results here! They will form the long range component of my Emperor's Children allied detachment to provide long range cover for the swifter moving elements. I'm tempted to buy a new defence line for the unit, but not sure just yet!

Work in Progress: Emperor's Children Jump Pack Marine Test Model

Today's update is a work in progress. In this instance: a jump pack marine test model belonging to the Emperor's Children legion.

The colour scheme follows the standard approach I've developed for this legion including Phoenician purple base layer, Xereus purple layer, contrast paint for the recesses and then gene stealer purple for the highlighting. I've got a lot of white on this particular test model as well which I've done in an off-white colour with edgings of Nuln oil into the recesses which help give a bit of a grime accent to it. 

Standard decals have already been applied, but what I've not yet accomplish are the weathering steps. I need to put some dents, hacks, and slashes across the shield and key components of the armour to suggest further wear and tear. Similar is yet to be done on the base wherein the aim is to complement the green forge world scenery that I have in the collection. Overall, I quite like the direction this paint scheme has since is eschews the ordinary gold accents in favour of white, whilst still retaining enough gold to keep the marine in fitting with the rest of the legion. 

Painted Iron Warriors Spartan Land Raider

This tank has been hanging over me for years silently pleading to be painted. The task is now done to a tabletop standard! Featuring quite a few decals, some hazard stripes, and otherwise plenty of silver and black, the Spartan land raider is unmistakably Iron Warriors.

I would be lying if I said I enjoyed painting all the rivets. I started with a few and then realized my mistake! Oh well, at least it shows some attention to detail if nothing else! Very happy with how it has turned out and I might well add on some more weathering (there's quite a lot at the lower edges of the tank, but thinking that the tracks could do with some as well potentially). Job done to a good enough standard regardless. 

Emperor's Children Apothecary Painted

An Emperor's Children Apothecary with jump pack, fully painted up!

As usual, white is a tricky colour to get right when painting. Here I have gone for an off-white colour with shading to help bring out the muted white nature of the apothecary. The purple is not so much of a problem to get looking right, and the other colours are generally fine. I did use a bit of blood technical paint for some of the vials, and this has also turned out very nicely. 

This miniature will accompany the assault squad and the praetor / consul for the detachment that I'm building. 

Emperor's Children Commander

Painting up this command for the Emperor's Children was a good exploration of how to use (and not use) purple colours. Originally I thought about going for a bit more of a metallic sheen, but in the end the purple that came out was not metallic whatsoever. I'm comfy with that. 

The contrast paint was used more as a shade for the phoenix purple base colour in the end which proved a good move. The gene stealer purple was then freed up to use as an accent. The gold and the white on the marine provides a really good accent colour to the deeper purple and this has come out really well overall. Coupled with a steady hand to get the eyeballs looking right and I'm more than happy with this miniature. It will serve as either a Praetor or consul for the Emperor's Children allied detachment that I have constructed - more on that in a later post. 

Painting With Decals!: Iron Warriors Rhino Dedicated Transport

Sometimes I feel that decals have really spoiled me. This Iron Warriors rhino is essentially "paint by decals" - which if its not a thing already it really should be. 

The rhino follows a standard Iron Warriors colour scheme with a variety of tones of silver ranging from lead belcher through to a more glittering silver, all toned down with washes of Nuln oil. Black and silver accents abound.

What really is interesting here are the decals. On the top hatch, I have taken one of the four very large decals and sliced it down the middle (and trimmed the upper edge a touch) to fit on the hatch. I had to carefully slice around the hinge joints to made this fit overall, but the effect is strong. Less obvious are the Iron Warriors skulls on the circular side doors which also follow the split-in-half approach. I still like them like this, but overall its not quite as effective as the upper hatch I think. Some hazard stripes and roman numerals round out the front of the tank. Overall a great job, but the decals have really done the hard work for me here. 

Painted Possessed

A batch of painted possessed completed recently. These marines follow the off-centre colour scheme started with my Gal Vorbak which features blue flesh, alongside more typical Word Bearer colouration coupled with a head replacement on one of them for a more human touch which I think makes it more fearful and imposing. The blue could do with a touch more highlighting, and the reds a touch more shading to be honest. But they're tabletop ready otherwise. 

I plan to use them as a second unit of Gal Vorbak ultimately. They are of roughly the same size and scale as the Gal Vorbak and can certainly take a spot alongside them without too much issue. That said, I would be the first to admit that I prefer the Forge World sculpts of the original Gal Vorbak, but these do rather well. 

Painted Iron Hands Praetor / Siege Breaker

One painted Iron Hands Praetor or Siege Breaker (to serve as either)

. 

Standing on a broken las cannon, this praetor features a thunder hammer and bolt pistol. The paint scheme is the same matte approach that I've taken previously with the black actually being dark grey in colour and liberal amounts of Nuln oil also being used. The hammer has an accent of some blues, and the decals round out the miniature along with some edging and chipping on the model. 

Originally, I was going to have this marine as part of my Shattered Legions force. But having seen the new rules, it is deeply unlikely I will field any Shattered Legions forces now in Second Edition - its just a mess from what I've read. That's a review for a different day though. Maybe I'll just field them as Black Shields and be done with it. Equally, I do have enough miniatures for allied detachments regardless so I'll probably stick with that. 

Iron Warriors Cataphractii Terminators

Finished painting the squad of Iron Warriors Cataphractii Terminators!

These hardened warriors are kitted out for close combat duty with 4 of them sporting twin lightning claws, and the fifth a heavy flamer and power fist. Perhaps in hind sight I should have just gone with all five of them as lightning claws, but I do like the heavy flamer in a close combat squad regardless. Not only for softening up the enemy before charging, but also as an anti-charge deterrent. 

Perhaps the most novel feature of the paint scheme here is the wet blending on the lightning claws, combined with dry brushing of reds up the arms to where the yellow and black hazard stripes are located. It is meant to give off a theme of red hot claws capable of slicing through anything. The chaos lord arms in particular work very well here indeed. I've also applied the same approach to the flamer. I am not quite as sold on the approach here, but what it does do well is to tie the squad together in a cohesive painting scheme which the bases round off nicely.