Orbdrop: Aaaaaaaah!

When a company shows exceptional customer service I think it is good to let people know. I have ordered from the Army Painter five times and every time their customer service has been awesome, they have been quick to respond to any queries and frankly the quality of their paints, primers, brushes and dips is fantastic.

I've been a bit quiet on the posting front, but will shortly have some piccies of my Thousand Sons army.

In the meantime a good friend of mine asked me to paint a Space Marine Chaplain in Terminator Armour for him. It was the first time I have worked with a non-modded white metal model with so much detail, but I was really happy with the end results. Following the excellent tips from Ron on From The Warp and Dave Taylor amongst others I avoided using any actual white or black on the model (aside from a black primer).

FRONT:


BACK:


Click to see fullsized piccies :)

The colours used were Charandon Granite Foundation for the armour, highlighted with 50:50 Charandon Granite + Bleached Bone. I then gave them three coats of wash with Badab Black.

For the bronze/gold pieces I painted them in Mithril Silver then applied three coats of Gryphon Sepia and finally highlighted with Shining Gold.

The scrollwork was Beached Bone, then a wash with Gryphon Sepia, Devlan Mud and Badab Black with a drybrush of Bleached Bone to finish.

The stand (from DragonForge) was Deneb Stone washed with Devlan Mud with Badab Black in the cracks, then edged with Bleached Bone and finished with another wash of Devlan Mud.

The eyes were Enchanted Blue with two coats of Wet Effect on them
Because metal minis are a bit prone to chipping I gave him two coats of Army Painter's Matt Varnish.

So I have finished the Thousand Sons Honour Guard models I have been working on.

Following the modelling and red primer I have painted in all the flat colours and then used the Army Painter "Strong Shade" dip. I was quite nervous about using it first time but it turned out really well though quite shiny. I took the shine off with the Army Painter Matt Varnish spray.

Here are some piccies:


One thing worth pointing out is how damn quick it was to paint the miniatures this way and I am very happy with the outcome:
Flickr Photo Album

EDIT: Just realised the photos of the two honour guards with spears was *before* I sprayed the Matt Varnish...

EDIT 2: I've added some more photos in better lighting including my newly finished Possessed Chaos Space Marine who is painted in a tiny bit of Blood Red, some Bleached Bone, lots of wash coats and finally Strong Tone dip from Army Painter:

Yep I've been quiet for a bit, work has been amazingly busy - though I have made good progress with my Thousand Sons army.

Anyway time for an update:
I have been making customised Thousand Son honour guard with a mix of Thousand Suns metal heads, and plastic bodies added to shields ordered from Maxmini, custom polearms made from Tomb King Kopeshes and polearms, and custom cloaks made by me using green stuff.



Once I had completed the initial modelling I primed them using the Army Painter "Dragon Red" spray which I have to say I am very impressed with - the red is a beautiful deep red that the photo can't really do justice.



Next step is to finish the other flat colours, and then for my next bit of experimentation I have been using the Army Painter Strong Tone dip.

Anyway for parts one and two here are some photos to give a  feel of how they are getting on:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gobion/sets/72157624047199034/

Don't worry I've not vanished! Things have been rather hectic at work with the announcement of the final title of the game (Fate of the World), but my miniatures painting has not suffered. I will post up some piccies and info on my Thousand Sons very shortly - I have almost a 2,000 point army now.

In the meantime, if you have not seen it check out Ron's post on painting red. It really got me thinking and I am attempting to bring the techniques into my own painting:
http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2010/04/blood-angels-how-to-paint-red.html

*EDIT*
Also worth checking out is this guide to painting red: http://stuck-between-stations.blogspot.com/2010/01/tutorial-painting-red.html on Stuck Between Stations. He uses Thrakka Green! :)

I've been thinking lots about how to field Thousand Sons in battle, and have thus far used the Space Marine Codex, but they lacked the flavour of the Sons, so I've been thinking of using the Chaos Space Marines Codex instead.

So the first step I have taken is to work my way through the Collected Visions of the Horus Heresy and extract all the named Thousand Sons units in the book and then work out their equivalent units from the Chaos Space Marine Codex. Here is what I have come up with - comments welcome!

HQ/Heroes

• Ahriman – Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons
• Brother Amsu – Thousand Sons Standard Bearer (Chaos Lord)
• Rehahti (Daemon Prince)

• Phosis T'kar
• Uthizarr
• Hathor Maat
• Onouris Neith

Scout Squad (Chosen Space Marines)*

• Prahotpe

The Sects (Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marines)

• Ankhet
• Meketre

Command Squad (Chosen Space Marines)

• Apophis

Tactical Squads (Chaos Space Marines)

• Jafari
• Khalmekt
• Tolbek
• Hesyr
• Pa-Siamun
• Lekmeht

Assault Squads (Chaos Raptors or Khorne Berzerkers)

• Menkaura
• Mekahta
• Besenmut
• Amunis

Heavy Support Squad (Chaos Havocs)

• Hasani
• Sobek
• Amensos
• Nebmaetre
• Sainheret
• Khalid

Despoiler Squad (Possessed Chaos Space Marines) **

• Chaggrat

Terminators Squads (Chaos Terminators)

• Sekhmet
• Phosis

Guardians of the Great Library (Obliterator Cult) ***

• Ankhu Anen

Dreadnought (Chaos Dreadnought)

• Kargori
• Khnum
• Khontackht
• Seraphis

Landspeeder (Chaos Biker)

• Qaa

Rhino (Chaos Rhino)

• Ju-Amun

Missing are names for Predators, Land Raiders, Despoilers etc but I will find appropriate ancient Egyptian names for them.

* I've listed the Scouts as Chosen Chaos Space Marines because there is no exact equivalent but Chosen CSMs can Infiltrate which is something they share with scouts.
** I've included Possessed Chaos Space Marines as Chaggarats as they are listed in the Collected Visions as "Despoilers" and frankly look pretty heretical to me. If you want to play a clean pre-Heresy force field them as Chosen Chaos Space Marines instead.
*** The Obliterator Cult / Ankhu Anen as listed here are also quiet Chaotic, so if you want to keep em clean I recommend fielding them as Terminators.

I've finished the first squad of my Thousand Sons. It has been an interesting learning process. Things I have learned:

1. Painting works best when it is White undercoat; Baal Red Wash all over; Blood Red; Baal Red Wash darklights; Blazing Orange highlights. Symbols painted in Burnished Gold. I initially used an undercoat of Mechrite Red Foundation immediately after the White undercoat but it made them too dark.
2. Always add a contrasting colour if you can. I was a bit stuck as the pictures in the Collected Visions limited my palette, but where I could I gave the marines Enchanted Blue & Gold shoulder pads.
3. In future I am thinking of using more Blazing Orange than just Blood Red - turns out you can give the impression of red without using too much red :)
4. Dragon Forge bases are awesome and the Steam Knight helmets from MaxMini were perfect - I can't recommend them enough. Just those helmets with no other major customisation made a huge difference.
5. I want to do more drilling and pinning - it is the best way to get clean edges.

So my new bases from Dragon Forge arrived and I am really, really happy with them. Also in the post were the various bits of Egyptian-style paraphernalia I ordered from Crocodile Games. The casting on both the Dragon Forge resins and the Crocodile Games metals was excellent and I think both will add a lot to the finished pieces.

Crocodile Games sent me a free figure to preview their upcoming range and it was a beaut :)

Here you can see the work in progress. The attempted halberd/boltgun centre top row didn't really work and I removed it and replaced it with a standard bolter. However I really like his backpack banner and the one one on ancient power armour marine (second from left bottom row),

I've also replaced the skull helmet (second from left, top row) with another Steam Knight helmet from Minimax as the skull wasn't Egytianesque for me.

You can see the lovely Egyptian banner from Crocodile Games second from the right, top row which will look ace when finished and I replaced the power sword on the mini second from right, bottom row, with a giant kopesh which looks much more Thousand Sons.

I've started all the bases, but the two most complete are the one far left and center on the bottom row.

Really really enjoying painting the bases - lots of lovely detail to use.

I just stumbled over a great post by Ron on From the Warp entitled "A Painting Quiz: Putting it all together" where he writes a very well thought out piece on how to get the viewer's eye to fill in the missing details on your model and save yourself a lot of unnecessary painting in the meantime.

I've just joined the truly excellent "From The Warp" Blogger Group as they say themselves "With almost 575 members, you can find the latest from each member below. From modeling to painting and even rumors, it's all there."

From my perspective I have found some really awesome blogs through there, so if you are a Warhammer 40k fan I cannot recommend checking it out enough. Also Ron, who runs it, is really friendly. I look forward to collaborating and contributing :)

http://www.fromthewarp.blogspot.com/