Space Marine Vanguard Veteran Squad

Whilst it has been a while since my last blog post, I have continued to expand my Space Marine army and have added some new completed units to its numbers. To be honest, since Christmas I have known that I will be getting a new camera so have waiting to post any new blog articles. Now I have it, on with the show!

 One of the units which has waited patiently for its time in the spot light is this Vanguard Veteran Squad. This unit was a pleasure to paint and is, in my opinion anyway, the best standard of painting I have achieved to date. I went with 2 x Thunder hammer/Storm Shield and 2 x Lightning Claw marines to give a bit of balance to the squad. 

I'm most pleased the Storm Shields and how the Relic blade on the sergeant turned out. The white helmets also turned out very well using (base) Celestra Grey -> (shade) Nuln Oil -> (layer 1) Ulthuan Grey -> (layer 2) White Scar .

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower

I'm very excited by this release! I vividly remember washing my parents cars, cleaning out the garage and cutting the lawn in order to save up the £45 to purchase the original Warhammer Quest back in 1995. I then took some of the models away with me on the family holiday that year as I slowly made my way through painting up the many miniatures (and blimey there where loads!). I've also sunk about 35 hours into the iOS game! So, as you can probably tell, I quite like Warhammer Quest. 

This new, Age of Sigmar, version of the game looks to be brining back the basic concepts but with some added mechanics. I'm not certain whether I'll be able to pick this up on release day as the contents of my coin purse need to go towards paying for my wedding and honeymoon later this year, but we shall see!

I Won A Painting Competition...

As part of the 30th Annivery Space Marine events at the local GW store here in Bath, the manager was running a 'design your own space marine chapter' painting competition. Considering how I have been painting a home brew chapter for a while I wanted to paint up a model and enter it for consideration. To my surprise, I won the Intermediate level competition!

My prize is to have a large marine painted up in the colour scheme of the chapter and this model will form the centre piece of scenery which will be used in Warhammer Bath store for years to come. I haven't been back to see the finished result but will post pictures once I have them.

Space Marine Contemptor Dreadnought

 Hot off the heels of the Land Raider comes a completed Contemptor Dreadnought.

I've had this model for 18 months and it had sat, base coated for the vast majority of that time! After completing the Land Raider I was keen to carry on learning the advanced modelling techniques which I had begun experimenting with on the Land Raider. This model seems like the perfect next step as, with it being essentially a 30k model, I could go to town on the weathering and feel comfortable that if I went OTT it would still look good. Mission accomplished I think?

Space Marine Land Raider

Well, hasn't it been a while!

I've been slowly working on this model for about 6 months but yesterday I finally managed to add the remaining few details, move it to the 'completed' column on my rather glacial Kanban board and be in a position to put up a new blog post!

So, why has it taken sooo long? 

Its fair to say that my hobby focus has changed pretty drastically over the last 12 months. It's been nearly 18 months since I last played a game and my hobby partner, who helped provide me with an awful lot of motivation is on a hobbying hiatus. I am also getting married in September next year and weddings are rather expensive! combining that with an addition to plastic crack isn't really going to work.

As I no longer need to get models 'done' asap prior to being used on the battlefields of Warhammer World, I can focus on pushing my painting skill and ability. As a result I have reduced my modelling backlog; this involved the sale of the Assassinarum board game and Death Storm boxed set, amongst other things and will focus on quality over quantity.

This Land Raider is the first example of this new focus. I have used as many of the advanced techniques detailed in the Forgeworld: Advanced Modelling Techniques Volume 1 and whilst it has obviously been a learning experience, I am happy with the result. 

Most of what the book teaches is very different to the basics of base coating, washing and layering. Using harispray, oil paints and white spirit alongside weathering with pigments and using graphite to highlight the tracks... its been a challenge but I hope the results can speak for themselves.

Next up is a Contemptor Dreadnought. It may take me a while to get it completed but I intend to use the same techniques learnt on this model, hopefully with improved results.