2010 1st Quarter updates

What I've been working on:

Anticipating the New Blood Angel codex

With the release of the new codex just around the corner, and trolling the BA codex rumour discussion, I cant help but have a big smile when I've read the post describing how our BAs will look like.

Corbulo and Attack Bike sidecar "done"

Yep, you heard me right: "done" (mind the quotation marks ).

Needed to vent my frustration (and turn the energy instead to something positive) so worked on these and declared them "done". Perhaps I may work on them in the future, but as they they stand now, are good enough for the tabletops (For example, I got lazy on adding coats of Blood Red to get the proper hue and be consistent with the rest of my army). Nonetheless...

Official WIP update (2/2)

Oookay, another update time, let's see if I could spot the difference between the first update and these batch of pics:

Tactical Squad finished! Here's their group shot, though I'm not happy with how the photo turned out, but heck! To tell you the truth, this' the very first squad I ACTUALLY finished painting for my army


Next item: BA SHP Corbulo:

Let's see: he's 75% done: needs touching up, another (brighter) coat of red and some missing details. Topcoat, and only then I could say this one's finished...

Next: attack bike sidecar...

What can I say? Meh, let's say 65% finished...

Last item: Venerable Furioso Dreadnought... progress? Bah... still the same 25% overall progress...

Oh well...

Update time yet again!

I'm excited to nail the coffin on this squad: but I have to be patient and wait for glue, cement and as well as some enamels to cure proplerly before I topcoat them.

Here're the final pieces of the 1st Squad puzzle:

The grenade-lobber and the 2nd-in-Command. As I mentioned somewhere before, my 2iC, should I choose to combat squad it, will lead the other demi-squad. Therefore, I had his 'side-loincloth' with yellow (originally planned black, but decided otherwise coz of the limited number per decal sheet) BA icon over red (not seen much at their rear-view). I also experimented with a rattle-can red, but found it too deep for BA (as you may notice on the 2iC left greave).


The 1st squad's dedicated transport, driven by tech-adept Balthazar. Main colors painted by a friend, I just painted the searchlight, smoke launchers, details (such as scriptures, squad/company marks, army badge and rivets) and the BA icon plate at the front. The extra armor doesnt appeal to me much rulewise, so it's just there for cosmetic purposes.

Next off would be the attack bike sidecar+passenger and Corbulo! (coz 'counts as' is sooo in nowadays hehehe )

Cheers!

Quick addition; gonna put in a short one: BARE HEADS!



While tedious and frustrating to paint, everything goes away once it/they are finished. Learning curve? It's like a plateau, with a mountain just before the crest... why a mountain for the climax? The EYES! Gawd it's hard to paint those without the proper brush, or one fine enough to hold paint and keep it wet till you're comfortable and dot the iris... I also noticed that the newer bareheads have smaller eye/sockets, or rather less prominent... just my bitter observation though :P ahh well, in the end it's worth it

Official WIP update (1/2)

This entry is my first official update for the LPC (should've been last Jan31, but real-life takes priority :blink: ) Anyways...

Of the tactical squad I've committed, most of the marines done can be found in my blog entry below...

As for the rest, here they are hung upside down while waiting for their turn to be painted :P


And some on my work area:


1. The front plate for my Rhino. From the Baal Pred box, actually a test piece for the red I'll use as spray... turned out OK though...
2. Heh, not much to say for this one: it's left shoulder's where I throw my extra putty to bulk things up before I do the actual shoulder pad shape...
3. Four searchlights, four smoke launchers and a head. Didn't want to waste time on doing just 1 set of these vehicle accessories. Why just the head? It's a test mini for item #4
4. Test pieces (colors on primer gray). To speed things up, I'm looking for a shade of red equal to GW Blood Red+GW Purity Seal since for some reason, GW Purity Seal darkens the red a bit. For example(s), compare these two (I swear it aint because of photoshop)

Cheers!

1st Tactical Squad roll call

Blood Angels 1st Squad (Tactical)

Click on the thumbnails below to see full view:



- Squad pic TBA (when all squad members are done)
- Rhino WIP

Corbulo conversion/assembly done...

Now to wait for attack bike sidecar to be done and off to the paintshop for him Kept the Red Grail simple with it being stowed (imagine the belt pouch of a canteen, only upside down with flap)...

I think next time I should radically alter the face if ever I'm gonna use the same head bit, I dont want to see clones of him, since this represents a unique character

Anyways, here's a pic:


Cheers!

1st Tactical Squad marines

Meh, forgot to post these figs: these were done before B&C's LPC proper...

These still need their weapons (rightmost will have a flamer) and topcoat

Puttying is like a relationship: it doesnt always go the way you want it, but if you do go for it, the results can be very satisfying :P

Did a bunch of assembly work the past couple of days: firstly concentrated on the attack bike sidecar. I'm still not yet sold on the cut-up legs I did for the passenger, though I'm taking my pace. If I hasten it, it'll become a 'chore' for me and it's gonna take out the fun in this aspect of the hobby (main reason why it takes me 2-3 days just to paint a single figure, rank-and-file or otherwise). Too much tasks for the sidecar to list here

But...
The (2iC) for the tactical squad is ready for painting (again have to wait on that tho till I finish assembly of other models for batch spraying). That single ornament on the left greave became the crux of the figure

Hmmm... I also need to cast/do an army badge... oh well...

Corbulo, Ayayayayay... for one I'm talking about his greave ornaments: winged blood drop on both greaves... Kinda done with them: the putty is curing at the moment and have to revisit it later to get the edges right. Also did the final touches on his badge-of-office right pouldron.

Still about Corbs: I have yet to get over his Red Grail wargear: the 'counts-as' piece of equipment I did doesnt bling much to me anymore, so I might go back to that cup I made back then (I still have it somewhere havent I? )

Here're the pics:

^this pic was taken earlier, evident on the lack of wings at greave ornament on my WIP Corbs (lower left)

[LPC]1st Squad (Tac) Norm 2 almost done (for topcoating)

Time for an update (though not the LPC-kind required update as per LPC rules).

Another marine (almost) done! But alas, having a photo op of your fig thus bring out the best, and the worst, of it. From the pic below, I just remembered to get rid of that gash-o-paint on the upper part of the backpack, to 'trim' that Mithril Silver highlight on the bolter and fix that rogue highlight on the left couter. You may also notice the mould line at the bolter... boo-hiss!


Here's the next to be done for the squad. Assembled (Grnade) marine to be holding one in his left hand (simple cut-and-paste of the arm/hand+ a grenade) and the (2iC) with a conversion MkIV helm. I also need to put a small BA blood drop onto the left greave of (2iC) as well as on the backpack of (Grnade). Regarding the MkIV helm: I wanted the skull so I chose that particular helm to sculpt on (again, no way to acquire the bit). They needed their bases done as well.


Before I go and undercoat these boys, I need to do Corbulo and the Attack Bike sidecar stuffs as well so I could undercoat these all in one go.

1st Squad (Tac) HWProxy almost done (for topcoating)

W00t! Another marine (almost) done! Rank and file for that (yeah I know, it's crazy and kinda overkill) but heck, it makes me happy

Here's a pic:


Aargh, I noticed I need to make the barrel sooty...

4 more to go: the 2iC, Grnade, Norm2 and Rhino; their weapons and batch spraying with topcoat

Need to make (sculpt) an old Mk helm for my 2iC...
Need to clean the mold lines on the Grnade dude...
Reg2 needs some cleaning/soaping: for some reason, after I painted VMC Red Hull and letting it sit for a week or so while I work on the rest one-by-one, there are spots that paint doesn't adhere to (I doubt my gf handled the fig as some of the spots are pretty hard to get to).

Oh my eyes hurt

I have to work on the lighting for my photo-ops: as I always loose the highlights on my red every time I do post-processing