sons of orar milestone reached

Brief update all. My aim beginning of the year was within 6 months to get 10% of the army fully painted with representation from each squad. This was more of a background project while I continued with other projects from month to month. I’m happy to say I hit that milestone and am very happy with the results. My next aim for this army is to complete some of the squads and some more vehicles so by the end of the year 25% of the army is fully painted. Cheers. 

sons of orar update.

Hi all. 

Wanted to update regarding my sons of orar project. Exclusively primaris project which I’ve assembled, basecoated and based 95% of the models (210 by last count) and am setting myself targets to paint my way through the army, having started beginning of the year. This won’t be a quick project but I’m hoping to have 25% of the army fully painted by end of this year. The first 10% was to experiment with one test models from each type of squad and the results thus far can be seen here. Thanks. 

Blood ravens update, new decals, army 70% done

Greetings all. A rather unexpected project was an update to my blood ravens. I would say the army is painted to 80% of my highest standard in that I haven’t highlighted them, but all the basecoats and shading are applied. 

I had previously done some freehand for the shoulder pads but it never looked great and so I always wanted to revisit things later. I did try my own decals printed but they didn’t come out very well. I ultimately bought a set off eBay (based on a sheet from a forum made some years ago) but the decals were too thick and hard to apply. After feeding back to the seller he provided me more which were near perfect. 

It was a bit of a slog as not only did I have to remove the fineliner ink but I also had to build the layers back up to ushabti bone before applying the new decal. Took a fair few weeks but the army is now at the stage I am happy to leave the project alone for a while. About 1/3 of the army remains and I hope by end of the year to paint and decal them also. 

Tabletop Tactics homage project

Hi folks,

Following on from my hobby update I wanted to share some pictures of a project that took a fair chunk of my hobby time over the Summer. I'm a fan of Tabletop Tactics having started out watching their youtube channel and later signing up for their subscription service. Links to both below for those who haven't come across them. The quality of the production and entertainment value is amongst the best in my opinion when it comes to Warhammer battle reports, tactica and articles. Definitely worth a look if you've never watched.

https://tabletoptactics.tv/

https://www.youtube.com/user/tabletoptactics

Anyway, it's been a while since I've worked on a one-off conversion / painting project and as soon as this idea flashed through my mind I realised I needed to see it through to completion. It was inspired by a t-shirt available on their shop, which has caricatures of the original TT cast as RT-era marines. I love the t-shirt and decided what would be a great project would be to make a deathwatch kill-team in their honour, representing the 6 current members of the team as marines. I contacted the studio and proceeded with their blessing. 

 

All in all the project took a few months and was based on a 5-man veteran kill team with an artemis model. Unifying features incuded the bases, for which I used industrial floor plasticard leftover from other projects as it resembled the filming studio floor. I also added name plaques for each member through versatile terrain (link below) which were able to be customised. I tried to add a squad marking in the form of TTs logo of two dice on the knee-pad. This was customised for each member and is detailed below. The faces were loosely based on the staff members themselves.

https://www.versatileterrain.co.uk/

SPIDER

Head honcho at the studio and based upon the Artemis model, Spider was customised with a grey knight falchion (his SM faction of choice) and some xenos tech in the form of a shuriken catapult, given his love of all things aeldari. What can't be seen in the photo is that the DW logo is modified to resemble the TT logo. His chapter shouder pad is a popgoesthemonkey shapeways black dragon logo from their deathwatch set (as below) painted to resemble Roku, the mascot dragon. Speaking of which, the D.R.A.G.O.N and S.A.C.R.E.D tactical teachings from their site are emblazoned on the shin parchment. Base decoration is a, well, spider, painted in the colours of the studio Tyranid hive fleet. Lastly, his dice number is naturally a double 6 given his uncanny ability to roll 6s in battle reports.

CHEF

The chef has a raven guard primaris head to give him his iconic silken hair and comes equipped with a necron phase blade (given his passion for the croissant-bots) and a combi-melta seeing as melta is so hot right now. His chapter pad is loosely based on his Ashen Huntsmen white-scar themed marine army and also grants the dice number of 5 to his knee pad, seeing as they are the 5th legion. 

BONE

The studios resident Aussie if depicted here as a space-wolf chapter brother, sporting a head from the wolf-scouts upgrade part of the pack set. He packs not only a deathwatch bolter, but a CSM terminator chainaxe, emblazoned with nordic runes spelling out both bane (his wolf-lord character on the tabletop) and kharn, everyones favourite chain-axe wielding psychopath. His dice number is 7, seeing as it is the blessed number, and on his base is none other than Grotty, the studio mascot Nurgling, packing a shotgun ;for close encounters'. 

BEARD

The bearded one sports a head from the series 2 space marine heroes set in an attempt to do his facial hair justice. The chapter badge is a silver skulls one in iron warriors colours complete with chevrons - not quite heretical enough so as to still be acceptable to the deathwatch. He is packing an infernus heavy bolter and is accompanied by non other than the bone-cherub carrying a melta-bomb to the fray. (what a team!) This completes the holy trinity of bolter/flame/melta that the Adeptus Sororitas so covet, hence the gift of the order of our Martyred lady icon awarded to him. His dice number is double 1..... the reasons for this will become apparent if you watch any of the battle reports.

STIG

Accompanied by a servo skull carrying ammo, the Stig carries a Guardian spear into battle reflecting his love of the Custodes on the tabletop. His other go-to army, the ad-mech of Stygies VIII not only grants is a bionic left arm, but also an ad-mech shoulder pad and the dice number of 8. The head is from the space wolf thunderwolf kit.

SANGA

Last but not least, the behind the scene one-man painting army that is Sanga is represented by a jump-pack equipped brother sporting the classic Blood Angel smash-captain combo of thunder hammer and storm shield. The hammer is adapted from the deathwatch and death company sets and the shield from the Space Hulk terminator kit. I can't honestly say which space marine kit the head came from and naturally, being a huge blood angel fan, a BA shoulder pad is present on the right arm. His dice number is 9 for the Blood Angel legion and one last little feature is a shackle and chain on the leg, in order to keep him chained to the painting desk.....

That's the lot. A thoroughly enjoyable little project which, once complete, was gifted to the TT studio team. Big thank you to Lawrence for supplying the photos and giving me free-reign to use them and also to his lovely wife Rachael for her correspondence throughout the project. I hope you have enjoyed the tour through the project and please give the above links a look in. Cheers.

Blog update - very long overdue! What I have been up to the past 2 years

 

Hello everyone. I have been off the radar for almost 2 years now it appears from the date of my last post. Many a reason for this. Exams, new baby, new job, working on the house and garden, COVID etc etc. the blog(s) just fell by the wayside sadly. Hobby output is less now than previously but I’m still plodding on through the endless backlog. Sadly not gaming at present due to COVID (my last game was 8th edition). Still, today I am sitting down for a few hours and updating some things on both sites, as well as clearing out the spam comments. Hopefully this will be a more regular thing from now on but as my hobby output is less, there'll be less to share. 

It looks like the points I had got to before my hiatus was to have all the marine armies were at a good point - I had all the models I wanted base coated as a minimum. Since then the collections have migrated from the house, to the garage, to the loft. My only real updates have been to expand the primaris content of the sons of orar / deathwatch, as well as adding in the occasional unit, such as my black Templar assault terminators and a few iron hands characters. I did add a few painted items to my blood ravens and salamanders too. This has allowed me more time to focus on non marine armies for a change so be sure to check for updates on my other blog.

The sons of orar have seen some expansion with 9th edition and I am hoping to further build on this, as well as adding to the deathwatch, once the rest of the marine releases land in the not too distant future. Aside from Primaris named characters I'm not going to be expanding the existing armies, save for these two. I also need to sort some custom decals for the Sons - here are some examples of the fully painted models so far. 

Much of my hobby time the past 3 months has been taken up by a marine side project which I have now completed. I will save this for a post of its own in the near future as I';m anticipating some studio quality photos I will be able to upload. In addition I will put up a post talking about a brief youtube venture and some warhammer world trips prior to covid. For now I’ve added a compilation of hobby pics from my phone since the time I last posted. Cheers. 

Deathwatch army showcase

Seasons greetings folks. The past few months have been filled with many challenges that have impacted my hobby time. Of these the one that has impacted the most is having a house extension built, which led to me having no hobby space for a couple of months during the turmoil. However, I’m now set back up and trying to get on track with a few projects. 

The deathwatch were, I believe, the last outstanding showcase from my space marine project log. To recap, the idea was to get all the armies to a standard where they are assembled and ready to place on the tabletop with nothing sitting in a box waiting to be assembled. I’m happy to say that as of this moment I have reached that target. 

The reasons for the deathwatch being late to the game were that not only were they the last (non primaris) marine army that I started to collect, but also I decided to expand them to include primaris amongst their number when the new book hit. My friend mike was looking to get rid of his primaris stuff and so a few conversions and a shapeways order later and I now have an army almost double the size of before. 

35 veterans and a host of primaris marines allow both parts of the army to be totally customised to try out different things. A bit of ranged support exists in the form of a land raider, pair of dreadnought and a Corvus black star. I’m hoping to get a repulsor and couple of primaris characters to add once Warhammer conquest gets to that stage also, but most of the deathwatch action is up close and personal via the teleportation chamber. (Plus a non pictured drop pod) 

And with that I draw to a close both 2018 and my marine showcases. 2019 marks a bit of a hobby landmark in that regard in that it will be the first year in quite some time without any new (loyalist) marine projects. Plus I will be moving into my new hobby room in about a months time. As a result blogging will probably be a bit less frequent on this blog but maybe a bit more active on codex imperialis due to other projects taking centre stage. Plus a couple more things that may materialise in the near furture. Cheers.

Legion of the damned showcase

Hi folks, 

My penultimate army showcase is actually my smallest. It's a legion of the damned force, which sadly is pretty difficult to run being an index-only option these days with no official HQ options. They're mostly made up of the gorgeous LOTD models with some conversions so that no two look the same and a sergeant centurius model taking centre stage. Lava bases were made by painting bases up with a mixture of red and yellow on them before painting over with  GW crackle paint and then drybrushing black over this. Cheers.