Long time between pics

Hi all, sorry for the lack of content, but Uni has been kicking my ass, and I'm lazy.

Enough excuses, on to the content of this post. Alternate BFG ships!

None of this blood is mine . . . * Finished Sons of Horus and WIP World Eaters

*Quote shamelessly stolen from ADB's blog.

Hi guys, been a little while since the last update, but I have been busy.

I've managed to finish 3 more sons, and 2 WE (bar their backpacks which is why they count as WIP).

Firstly we have my home made Praetor (I have another set of the FW praetors I will be painting for myself, hopefully as well as the ones I did on commission), he was going to be used as a counts as Azreal, but will now probably be used as a sternguard SGT.

The base features a salamanders helmet, or a really dirty SoH helmet, its a pretty standard feature on my bases, and I tend to forget I'm doing PH/HH and just paint them whatever colour I have to hand.

I'm not actually that happy with the sword on this guy, but being a gaming army, and still not having played a game with it I think I can let the fact the back side is better than the front side slide. I also painted the plasma in a more subdued orange because its not actually pointed at anyone, so it makes sense for the weapon to be powered down.

Next we have some apothecaries, which given their uselessness as a buff bubble ala sang priests will probably just get used as regular Tac marines.

I haven't managed to get my hands on any of the new technical paints yet, so the blood here is done the old fashioned way using Tamiya clear red, and a second coat with a touch of black. But I'm pretty happy with the effect, even at a million times magnification.

Next we have the reason for the title of the blog post . . . WIP World Eaters. I personally see the change in coloration from white to red as a result of their blood letting. The human body has between 4-6 liters of blood, and an Astartes would have considerably more, so they would make a hell of a mess when hacked up with chain weapons.

I intend on writing a piece of fluff eventually that describes how some of the berzerkers as a symbol of there heresy decide not to wash off the blood of the slain from Istvaan, and as time went on, armour broke and was replaced, but painted red to maintain the connection to the betrayal and dropsite massacres.

Thoughts on the paint job, the fluff and the amount of blood?

Thanks for looking.

Sons of Horus WIPS, and a view to the future.

Greetings, back from the dead again with some WIP Sons of Horus.

These guys are are done up to the oils stage which will define all the armour plates alot more.

Firstly, the Azreal counts as:

Second is some apothecaries, after the oils I'll add some more blood to their armour, removing progenoids can be a messy business.

Next is my take on the Worldeaters, which I'll be using as assault marines, they'll all be getting MkIV jumppacks and butchers nails markings.

In the vein of the WE's, the Sgt for the squad, or some kind of preator if the WE section gets out of hand.

Finally . . . . .

Thanks for looking.

Sons of Horus Squads WIP

Just a quick one today, the Praetors got me excited to paint some Sons of Horus again, and since I had some built, I undercoated and sprayed them this afternoon.

They might take a while to get any further than this though because I have exams in 2 weeks, and i should probably study for them. 

Thanks for looking.

More Sons of Horus WIPs

Well its been a while. Things have slowed down due to the start of the uni year and the running around that is involved in that, I'm expecting it to be a very slow year of hobby until the holidays because of the amount of time I'll have to put into my degree.

However, I have some more progress to show:

Firstly, the model that I am most happy with so far, Bannerman "TBD":

Continuing the mixing of the Mks of armour, I also added one of the FW bionic arms from the character upgrade set they released. The banner is the standard from the SM command squad, with various purity seals which I have used to cover up an abortive attempt at damaging the standard.

 Betrayal say the Sons used to gild the skulls of worthy opponents, this is the first time I have added skulls to a model in the SoH force, though they should be making more of an appearance from now on.

Secondly, a Sgt for the new squad, armed identically to the previous one, he does however have a bionic arm.

 Next we have some troopers, one of which will have a plasma gun.

And finally we come to something different, I have been trying to figure out how to make my assault marines stand out, and didn't want to go with the named company of black armoured marines. So I decided that my assault marines will be a unit of World Eaters seconded to the Sons, or simply picked up in the heat of battle. In this way I can explain why they just get thrown out in the thick of the fighting, with no regards to casualties (I'm pretty terrible at keeping assault units alive) as the SoH commander simply doesn't care.

I need to buy some more of the FW chainaxes, and maybe one of the new sets with the pistols before I can finish this squad.

Thanks for looking. 

Azreal WIP 2

Just a quick pic to show that work is continuing on the SoH.

I added a secondary plasticard layer to the front of the sling to add some detail to an area that I though was looking more like a beauty pageant contestants sash then a sling.

Before anyone (Matt) asks how it works, I have no idea, its just for looks.

The only conceivable problem (besides the functionality) I have with this design, is the size of the buckle. I may cut it off, and redo it in pure GS. The only thing stopping me is that I used polycement to glue it down, and a buckle would need to be robust enough to be manipulated by someone wearing power armour gloves.

These are the thoughts that keep me up at night. Any input from the brains trust?

Counts as shenanigans: Azreal

Hey all.

Since finishing the spartan its been nice basking in the afterglow of the internets, but progress must continue, and the sons need someone to lead them.

I want to do a terminator heavy force, and to get them to count as troops in normal games of 40k, I need deathwing, or wolf guard. I've already done a wolfguard army, and Dark Angels just got a new book. So DAs it is. I'll obviously do a Belial conversion later (maybe a counts as Abbadon? Maybe I should do it soon, so I can be the first guy?) but Azreal seems like the most versatile choice, since he unlocks both ravenwing (jetbikes?) and deathwing.

The current plan is:
Azreal
dude with banner of devestation
30x tac marines
5-10 deathwing
3-6 ravenwing
dreads
maybe a predator.

But I also want the army to be able to be folded into any codex that catches my fancy. Ie Chaos. So some for though will have to be put into construction of the terminators so that they can cross codexes easily.

Anyway, enough dribbling from my brain. Onto the pics.

Front:

Continuing the theme of mixing armour mk's, the legs arms and left shoulder are mk4, the torso head and right shoulder are mk3. The little kilt, from the SM command sprue I think, is a nod to the Catphraci  terminators, and will be painted in a dark red. The left hand is plastic, whilst the right is resin, and in some kind of weird FW/GW disparity, they are completely different sizes. I didn't realise this before I glued them to the sword hilt. Obviously I will run him as a Preator with Paragon blade (GL terminator force sword) in 30k, cause that's what everyone else seems too.

Left side.

 This angle shows the flow of the pose a bit better, I was trying to capture a mid-underhand swing, and the momentum affecting the slung combi bolter. He has been pinned numerous (9) times, with one in each shoulder, elbow, wrist hand/sword (one piece of 1.6mm brass rod), right knee and left foot.

Back:

This show the sling and the swing on the bolter a bit better, I tried to 30k up the plasma gun a bit, whilst still retaining the mastercrafted look. Some of the back pack mounting had to be removed to aid the flow of the sling, but its covered anyway, if its too noticeable I'll resculpt it before priming. For tournament WYSIWYG purposes he also has a bolt pistol, frag and krak to cover almost any load out. The little shield can count as a refractor field. I also added a pouch to the holster of the Bolt pistol, to cover up the ugly nothingness of the design.

I actually quite enjoyed putting this guys together, and as the first character I wanted to make him stand out. I'm thinking a white helmet, red plume as a nod to this guy being a terran luna wolf veteran, I will ofcourse make up some fluff to explain away why he wasn't purged on Istvaan 3.

Thanks for looking, anything you have to contribute to the list, ideas on paint, or what you think I did wrong I'd love to hear them.

Aaron

Spartan finished

Hi everybody.

I've been working pretty constantly on this, and I have to say, I'm in love. It may have been a dog to put together, but shes a beauty queen now. A battered and chipped one.

I incorporated a piece of iconography from the Horus Heresy Betrayal book, the one that looks like an upside down sunrise. According to the book this was displayed by some of the elite formations of the SoH, and considering the rarity and tactical nature of the Spartan I thought it was appropriate.

 I tried the technique of Object source lighting (OSL) for the first time of this model too. I used blue to compliment the power sword colour I had already used on the Sgt previously.

The side shot show the makings I put on the doors, Unfortunately the XVI numerals I painted at the top of the door were covered by the mud. Freehanding all the symbols and numbers is a real pain in the ass, but the silver lining is not having to worry about decal film .

 Rear shot, I just love the size of this power plant  I'm also really happy with the treads, adding the strips may have been a ball ache but it has improved the character of the tracks immeasurably IMHO.

Top down shot, showing off the hazard stripe. The justification for the amount of stripes on the engine grill is to warn dopey marine crew wearing a tonne and a half of armour not to step on the grilles.

Finally a scale shot, this is one big mamma jamma.

Thanks for looking. Let me know what you think, and what you think I should do next.

SPARTAN!

I promised some pics of the WIP Sons of Horus, and I'm delivering.

Recently I was hanging out at my mate Johns place, and seeing the amazing work hes put into his FW city fight tiles (seen here @ The Painting Bunker) has spurred me on to start the sons again.

Now I've always been one of those people that eats desert before the main meal, and I tend to get carried away. So when the opportunity came up to buy a spartan I didn't even blink.

This thing is a beast. However the instructions, unlike most FW products, are lacking in the details. This lead to a colossal fuck up on my part and I glued two section of track on the wrong way round. The lesson here people is to always dry fit you expensive FW models before committing glue to resin.

One thing I cant stand about the design of these Pre heresy heavy tank models is the tracks. There is no conceivable way that those things generate enough traction to move something that is supposed to weigh in excess of 100 tonnes. 240 pieces and 2.5 feet of 1.5x1.5mm plastic stripe later I had tracks that even if they might not actually work, at least look to me like they would.

After several choice words, a walk around the house to calm down, and a failed attempt to break the bonded pieces off (resulting only in snapped track sections), I came up with idea of adding track guards and assault launchers to cover up my mistake.

Now I've done it I wouldn't have it any other way. I think it just looks so tough. Like a M1A2 Abrams with the full TUSK upgrade. In that vein, I scratched up one of the command frames from apoc that came with my emperors fist tank company, and stole the SM sensor suite to make a remote weapons unit. I mounted the Hunter killer and a multimelta from the FW Pre-heresy heavy weapons pack onto it.
This was then magnetised into the top plate for the heavy bolters.

I should also mention that I magnetised Quad lasers, and their mounts for ease of transport and pose ability. An interesting thing to note is that 2x 3mm/1mm magnets fit perfectly in the holes the lascannons are supposed to mount too. I had to get alittle more creative with the sponson mounts.

All in all I cant wait to paint this beast, and expect to have it finished soon.

I should also post this, because it boggles the mind.

Almost 3/4 of a kilo, or a pound and a half to my American friends. Heavy support indeed!

Til next time.

Kheres Mortis complete

Hello again. Welcome to another update of my rambling towards completing a Sons of Horus army, Today I present the completed Kheres pattern Mortis contemptor.

This guy came together quickly in the end, probably because I rushed him, and because I fell into the trap of over weathering him. I'm not unhappy with the results until I put the two completed dreads together and compare them, the first has a much more controlled application of chipping which I prefer the finish of.

Anyway, here's the pics:

More after the jump.

Tac squad and Rhino done!

I apologise for the lack of recent updates, I'd like to say its been because I've been busy, but I've just been lazy.

But putting that behind me, I found my mojo, and its been a busy couple of days here at Casa de Sheep, the results of which I present to you now.

Here's the finished Tactical squad #3

As you can see they are armed with a missile launcher and plasma gun, for general duties, I think this load out is pretty straightforward and can threaten most things on the table.

More after the jump.