Imperial Suns: Scouts Finished!

These scouts were a lot of fun to paint.  I'm glad I mixed in some of the space wolf bitz, it keeps to my cold weather theme.  Here's the finished product:

Tonight I'm going to fix up the broken terminator with a "normal" shield.  I did a simple greenstuff circle around the skull so I can have a quick an easy sun.  I'll be working on him tonight along with finishing the two vehicles.  A lot of work to do!  Especially since tomorrow morning I have a 6:30 am flight to Ottawa, Canada... and a 6:30 pm flight home.

Crunch time!

Imperial Suns: Scout Progress

I'm making progress on my scouts, it's funny how the slightly smaller shoulderpad makes freehand so much more difficult.  I finished up the yellows and have begun working on the blues and blacks.  I still have a lot to do on these guys but my goal is to get them finished by tomorrow.

There are a few places I need to still touch up on the sun emblems but it was a good start.  Tomorrow we're playing in a 2k NOVA prep tournament.  I'll see how the army does.  At this point it's probably too late to make any changes since I'll be traveling next week. 

NOVA: Crunch time

Less then two weeks until NOVA.  The flooding of my basement and the remodeling work/time has really thrown me for a loop.  I just haven't had the time to get things ready.  But never fear, I'll make it happen.  Next week I am making a day trip to Ottawa, and potentially a day trip to Baltimore, so I'll really need to finish by the end of this weekend.  Our local tournament group is putting together a NOVA prep tournament on Saturday so I'll get some practice games.  Here's what I need to finish.

- Finish painting Predator & Vindicator
- Finish painting 5 scouts
- Fix the broken techmarine
- Fix the broken terminator - potentially a new banner or shield
- Final touches on the display board
- Creative army list

Here's where I stand on my two vehicles. I'm almost done with the freehand sun emblems.  I would have liked to have done a more dramatic mural on the siege shield of the vindicator, but I still think this sun looks cool.  I still need to do the treads, green "gem" viewing portals, blacks, and silvers.

One thing I've noticed is that since it's been two years since I've painted this army I made the mistake of going a little too bright / high on my highlights.  Most people won't notice, but it's really bugging me.  I should have spent more time with a previous vehicle to make sure they matched.  My final highlight of space wolves grey must have been watered down with a little ultramarines blue.  Note to self... take better notes!

About a year ago, I had an accident where my tech marine and terminator fell off the table.  The banner broke off the terminator (was metal) and the techmarine shattered into individual pieces.  I'm debating on either rebuilding a sun icon or banner out of plasticard for the terminator or just doing a cool shield.  Any thoughts?  The techmarine should hopefully just need a little TLC with super glue and touch up.

I poured some more water effects into the little river on the display board.  I still need to add some static grass and touch it up.  I'm debating on whether or not to add snow.  Snow is on my miniature bases but it's a pain to do in large areas correctly.  Do you think it would detract from the overall effect if there wasn't snow on the display board, but snow on the individual models?  I'm still using the same color scheme for dirt/stone and will use the same static grass.

Finally my scouts need the most work, I haven't really gotten that far with them.  It'll take a ton of time to get them game ready by the weekend!

With that said, I'm really looking forward to NOVA.  I hope to meet a bunch of you there.  For those of you that can't make it, I'll be blogging every night in the hotel room.

Nova: Imperial Suns Progress (1)

I had a great extended weekend in Northern Wisconsin... no internet or phone access. It was really nice to get away.  Being a smart (and with a very understanding wife) hobbyist I brought up miniatures to paint.  Even though I forgot a lamp, I was able to paint during the daylight hours. 

For Nova at the end of August, I'm bringing my Imperial Suns space marines.  No major tricks, just a balanced list (maybe a little light on troops). Here's an example on what some of the army looks like.

I have yet to paint a predator, vindicator and 5 scouts.  That and finish up the display board, make some destroyed vehicle craters and smoke, and all the little extra stuff like pretty army lists.

Here's where I got over the weekend.  I put my first level shading on the vehicles and my first level highlight on the blues and yellows.  I won't go any further with the yellows until I'm done with the blue.  I find that the leftover paint on my sloppy fingers turns the yellow green.  I'll work on the symbols later too. The scouts have the base yellow and blue down with shading.  Now to build up the colors there.  Not bad for lacking my usual light source!

I'd like to do some fancy designs on the front of the vindicator.  The siege shield is begging for some freehand work.  Right now all I can think of is just an ornate sun.  Any suggestions?

I'm off to Vancouver tomorrow, so no painting until the weekend.  I'll try and get a good dent in my vehicle painting and finish up the display board.

Nova: Booked ticket, but changing armies

It has been an interesting 48 hours.  I frantically spent the last two days trying to assemble everything for a 2k dark eldar list to get a game in today.  Well, about 1:30 in the morning last night, while trying to stay awake I managed to step on a ravager.  Yes, crushed the sucker.  It's salvageable, but I'll need an entire new sail assembly since it smashed beyond being able to hold the side gunners.  After that I threw in the towel and came to the game today with a pseudo assembled army. 

I loaned a friend of mine my imperial guard list, full of chimeras and he proxied hydras and vendettas.  Needless to say, it was an uphill battle for the dark eldar.  I made a good showing, but in the end I was wiped off the board.  The 3 man trueborn squads were MVP's, they got a ton of downrange shots and had to be ignored in the threat priority.

In earlier news, I did book my ticket to Nova, the 40k tournament and was finally able to use some frequent flier miles to get the flights taken care of!  So I'm officially in.

So back to getting my butt kicked... it made me realize something.  In 2 months with a hectic work travel schedule, there is no way I could realistically get 2k Dark Eldar painted while getting quality practice games in.  I just would end up being frustrated all weekend long at the convention as I make a lot of learning mistakes.  Plus as seen by my crushing of the Ravager, dark eldar don't seem like they travel well with all the spiky bits.

Which leads me to, what army should I take?  I have Tau & Templar, which are pretty rough around the edges.  I also have three of the more popular armies: Blood Angels, Space Wolves, and Imperial Guard.  Now that I think about it, I have a pretty decent ork army from pulling together the gladiator list for Adepticon.  In the end I think I'll go with old faithful, my Imperial Suns (vanilla space marines).  I'm sure everyone is tired of seeing all the popular armies and I honestly haven't had the chance to get this army out very often. 

To make a decent 2k list, it'll mean a little list tweaking and adding a couple of units.  I think in the end I'll have a much more enjoyable experience playing the tournament and I can spend the next few months painting the Dark Eldar at a nice pace rather then rushing things.

Here's the list I'm thinking about bringing.

HQ: Librarian in terminator armor with storm shield, powers: null zone & vortex of doom

Elite: 5 Assault Terminators in Land Raider Crusader with Multimelta and heavy armor
Elite: Ironclad Terminator with heavy flamer and hunter-killer missile
Elite: Ironclad Terminator with heavy flamer and hunter-killer missile


Troop: 10 tactical marines with lascannon & meltagun, sergent with combi-melta in rhino
Troop: 10 tactical marines wiht lascannon & meltagun in a razorback with twin lascannon
Troop: 7 scouts with sniper rifles and missile launcher, all with camo cloaks

Fast: 3 Attack Bikes with multimeltas

Heavy: Vindicator with siege shield
Heavy: Thunderfire cannon
Heavy: Predator with autocannon and sponsoon heavy bolters

It's a fairly balanced list.  Perhaps a little light on the troops, but lots of threats.  I love the two ironclads working in tandem.  I have a lot of armor 13 & 14 against down range shots.  The land raider works as a great screen for the vindicator, attack bikes and ironclads. 

Here's what I'll need to do to prepare this for the tournament:
- Assemble and paint the vindicator.  I especially want to have fun with some freehand scene painted on the siege shield
- Assemble and paint the predator
- Fix one of the assault terminators, the old metal banner broke off.  Time for a super heroic banner to replace it!
- Repair the tech marine (fell between games and got smashed up)
- I would also like to make nice craters for my vehicles for the 6 result on the damage table.
- Some sort of travel display board.

I'll be sure to post progress and take lots of photographs.  I'll mix in the dark eldar, so no worries on that!  I almost got shiny object syndrome and picked up some tomb kings over the weekend... but that'll have to wait!

Fun with Craft Paint

Took some lousy pictures with my phone... nice shots with my camera to follow.  Just realized I only have 2 weeks left before I'll be gone traveling before adepticon.  Good news, I'm almost done painting the army.  Just finished up assembling and priming the two remaining horse scouts and the 5 objective markers (I love objective markers).

Here's some progress shots of the display base:

the door:

 

Here are some in progress shots of the display base... the colors aren't finished, and I'll be doing a lot of work on the gold & silver edging.  The river has been my mixing pallet!

  

 

Scouts are done!

So much left to do, but I think I'm at the half way point.

Done:
12 Marines
7 Scouts
2 Ironclad Dreads
1 Scout Biker
1 Terminator
1 Rhino
1 Razorback
1 Thunderfire Cannon & Techmarine
1 Land Raider

Yet to paint:
8 Marines
2 Scout Bikers
3 Attack Bikes
4 Terminators
1 Librarian
Objective Markers
Display Base
Explosion Markers / Wrecked Vehicles

Just wrapped up the four scouts and the scout biker.  Realized I didn't dust off the excess snow before taking pictures.  Now on to creating two more scout bikers and two more attack bikes.

 

Here's the first try at my attack bikes.  I'm doing two riders to represent the two wounds.  One rider with a multi-melta and another with regular weapons.

Sadly, I'm traveling again this week Monday through Thursday.  Adepticon is coming fast!

Scouts before a Travel Marathon

Unfortunately I'm about to head out for 8 days traveling for work (Vegas then San Jose)... suck.  Making progress on my scouts though.  I'm in love with the Vostroyan models and am incorporating them as scouts into my marine army.  By removing the bayonets, I figured the lasguns will make decent sniper rifles.  Here's a picture of my first three.

My set I'm currently working on will be the sarg (com link guy), a conversion of a missile launcher dude, and two other snipers. Just finished up the yellows and am working on the blues and silvers.

Also, I'm running three scout bikers.  By taking a lot of the chaos icon or spikes on the horse, the plastic marauder horsemen make excellent scout bikers.  I hacked up the top of a vostroyan and did a pretty poor job of greenstuff on the skirt.  Modified the lasgun into a bolter (to WYSIWYG the scout bike).  Have to make two more of these bad boys.  Here he is in progress:

 

More to follow when I'm back!

Dread Smash

First off, I'd like to thank Dave Taylor http://davetaylorminiatures.blogspot.com/ for helping me with some conversions. He did a phenomenal job last year making two ironclad dreads for me before Games Workshop came out with a kit. Here was the excellent work that he did making them:

I had the pleasure of painting them up. As you can see on the top there is a magnet that works with a removable hunter killer missile. If I'm not using that I'll work on a detachable banner. Or when the missile fires, I can simply remove it from the dread. I still have to add snow and grass to the dread on the right.




More pics to follow after the new year!

Welcome to the Blog

With the new job I took on a few months ago, I haven't been able to keep pace with my painting projects. I'm hoping this blog will help share some of my work and keep me accountable. Currently I've been working on my third version of my home grown chapter, the Imperial Suns. Here was one of the miniatures for version 2 that got me painting them again:


I since have changed up the way I do blues and yellows. My blues used to be an regal blue > enchanted blue > ice blue base, but I've now changed up my blues to regal blue > ultramarines blue > space wolves grey. Lots of steps inbetween sadly. Yellows make use of the awesome citadel wash gryphone sepia.

Here's a sample of the new paint scheme:



I started 2009 with a plan to do Adepticon like I usually do, the iron man of the gladiator tournament Friday, team tournament Saturday and the singles tournament sunday. This year mid year I realized I can't make the friday and saturday of Adepticon so I settled in to investing all my time into the singles tournament. Easy task, right? Yeah... shiny objects kicked in. In the span of the last year I've done an Imperial Guard army, tried to start a Bretonian and Warriors of Chaos Army, and added things to my Tyranids and Black Templars. So much for focus.

Now we're on the home stretch to Adepticon and work travel will be nuts the next few months... off I go!