Celestial Lions Retro Tactical Squad (Part 2)

 Continuing on from Part 1 , I have reached the middle steps of this batch painting project. First off I picked out all the belts, tubes, joints, metal areas, grills, etc. with Abaddon Black. All the recesses and joins were washed over with a 50/50 mix of classic Citadel Chestnut Ink and water. 

Base coats.

Next came the application of Space Marine Blue. This is a classic Citadel color from the ancient Space Marine Paint Set from 1989, and one of the oldest paints in my collection. It's still so perfect for my needs and I hope to find a replacement for it some day.

Middle stages. 

I had to slow down (okay, stop) this project while I worked on my Dreadtober project for this year. If you saw those posts you might have seen these guys standing vigil in the background of some of those pics.  Puny golden sentinels poised for action while big daddy dread slowly came to life. ..

Standing vigil.

With my work schedule  being  very punishing this holiday season this is about as far as I think I'm going to get with these guys before the year is up.  But never say never especially when there are so many week left to grind through...

Maddie's Marauder

 Both of my kids have always been fascinated by my miniatures hobby to some extent. Especially the colors of all of my various paint pots and bottles. 

So on the eve of her 3rd birthday she approached me while I was sitting at my hobby table and asked me if she could "paint a guy purple". I thought about it and almost sacrificed an old 2nd edition marine for this unique learning opportunity. But I remembered I had about 40 loose Chaos Marauder Archers from the old Battlemasters game that I won in the late '90s via an auction that was on the old WH40K Mailing List. 

Corax White basecoat. 

I brushed Corax White onto the marauder to act as a basecoat. I figured the easiest way to teach a kid this young how to paint is to use Contrast Paints. So I let her pick what colors to use on what parts and we proceeded with the lesson. 

The Bow of Red Era. 

I held her brush hand while holding the model with my left hand. And I guided her application of paint over the whole miniature. And I gotta say, this turned out better than some of the 'Paint and Take' competitions that I have participated in. I particularly love that she wanted the bow painted red as it totally screams early '90s 'eavy Metal doesn't it? 

Who doesn't love a green mohawk?

Next she picked out a rok to put on the base. (you can see it in the top pic behind the guy's left leg).  Next I helped her apply the grit to the base.  She had a lot of fun shaking the model into the cup full of grit. 

Gritty. 

Next step was to paint the base which we did in two coats.  I gave her a choice in colors for the bases rim and she chose, much to nostalgic pride, Goblin Green! 

And finally, I let Maddie pick out a grass tufts and we glued it down together. 

And that's a wrap! I think she's game to do more and since I have another 39 of these things sitting in a zip lock,  I won't be running out of them too soon.  

Celestial Lions Chaplain (Part 3)

 

All ready to use his beat-a-heretic stick. 

Considerable  progress has been made since the last post.  In fact, I finished the model! 

Retributer Armor was washed with Reikland Flesh Wash then highlighted with Stormhost Silver. The exception to this was the terminator honors dangling from his belt, I skipped the was step and instead added Shining Gold in order to make it stand out against all the other gold areas. 

Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint was used on the stuff I decided to paint boney-colored. The right paldron was particularly interesting to me. I highlighted this using Wraithbone. 

After the touch-ups were done and I decided I was satisfied with paint job in general, I glued on the backpack and added on the grass tufts to the base. 

And presto, a finished Chaplain, ready to take on the foes of the Emperor (while dodging those annoying sniper rounds!).

Battlemasters Tower (Part 3)

 Continuing from Part Two, I finally made progress on this thing by painting the doors. 

Adorable huh?

These doors were left in their original black primer for a few years now. The idea was that I would simply dry brush them in a gray and call it done. Only that once I got around to doing it I found that the gray of door kind of clashed withe the surrounding gray bricks. 

The gray on black doors. 

Well, I wasn't having that. So a wash of Agrax Earthshade mostly did the trick. I did find that the cracks between the individual door planks needed a kick in the contrast department, and more Agrax Earthshade wasn't going to do it, I needed to bring out something more potent. And that turned out to be Brown Ink from the Citadel Inks set from the '80s. The inks from that time still hold up and they were, and I'm not understanding this, very intense hues. I just used a thin blush and ran the Brown Ink down the joins and along the door edges. 2

Brown Ink in the joins. 

Gray over black. 

The hinges and door latches were all painted with the old Tin Bitz paint, then randomly painted with an old Copper craft paint. 

The studs on the doors were painted in a copper cplor as well then highlighted with Leadbelcher. I used Leadbelcher as a highlight on the hinges and latches also. 

All-in-all, I think these doors turned out pretty good. They really have an archaic vibe to them which is totally what I was going for.  But this mighty little tower isn't done yet. In part tfour I am going to paint the banner that is draped over the front crenalations. Well not the whole banner. -You'll see! 

Anyone know where I can find 25mm-28mm empty milk bottles?

Celestial Lions Chaplain (Part 2)

Continuing on from Part 1, it's time to paint this first-born hero. 

I picked out the gold ornamentation with Retributor Armour and used Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint on the areas I decided to paint a bone color. 

After a bit of internal debate, I decided to go ahead and paint the right shoulder pad a bone color instead of gold. I thought this might break up the monotony a bit. I kind of like the armor bewing white. It reminds me of a Dark Angel force that was shown in White Dwarf back in the '90s that had all the leader models painted in Death Wing white. Well, that's an idea for a different army I think. Next I painted the armor black using good old Abaddon Black 

Next I picked out the gun holster and the wax part of the purity seal using Khorne Red. Gee, for a guy who hates Chaos, he sure is adorned with a lot of colors named for it, huh? 

So, I suppose he's painted to a Combat Ready standard, but I have no intention of  keeping him this way. So far it's been fun painting up this old miniature. Next up, his mid-coats and highlights. 

Where's My Thane?

Of all the used dwarf models that came in the lot that I bought back in the summer, the only one missing a component was the Thane model; he was missing his axe.  His mighty axe. Gone. Lost in the warp. 

"Aye ain't 'armless, aye still got me teeth!"

The paint job on this one was refreshingly basic, so doing my thing over it shouldn't be too challenging I think. I'm tempted to keep that pink trim on his cloak, just for the humor of it. 

Gotta have solid stones to rock the pink frill.

Going through my bits, I found this hammer from the early '00s multi-part dwarf kit that I determined would do the trick. With minimal tinkering I was able to get it to fit, and I think it looks pretty tough. 

Heavy metal indeed!

Being the big-bad Thane that he is, I thought he needed a suitable base. Who needs a tactical rock when you got tactical slab! This came from the old citadel basing kit. I added a few skulls too in order to make it a bit more interesting. 

But is that enough skulls?

Here he is being test fit to the base. Yeah, I think he's going to look cool on this thing. I was surprised at how balanced he was on it, which will make gluing him to it a little easier. 

Surprisingly balanced.

I painted the base up first. I like to keep things detached at this stage in order to get a cleaner paint job. 

Painted rock and skulls. 

Painting this guy was pretty straightforward because he was more metallic colors than anything else. 

The green is my typical mix that I use for my dwarves: Caliban Green with a highlight of old Woodland Green.  As I paint more of these guys in this scheme the cool greens contrasting against the hot metallics seem to work better. Especially when a lot of them are all ranked up.

And yes, that purplish trim contrasts nicely against that cloak also. He's a Thane with a sense of style. 

Style. Pimp royale.

I used the existing color that was on the cloak as base for my greens and it works well giving the green an added sense of depth that I like.  I'm not sure but I think that existing  color was Kabalite Green or an older analog of it... just not too sure actually.

I needed more depth on his beard so I washed it with Nuln Oil and highlighted it again with White Scar.  After a few touch-ups, he was good and done. 

Hammer time! 

Here he is ranked up with the dwarf warriors that I painted a few months ago. I think he looks good and stands out prominently as a leader among his peers. 

A true leader indeed! 

Ultramarines Redemptor Dreadnought (Part 4)

 With mere hours of the year's Dreadtober challenge left, I managed to get my project completed. 

I used 'Ard Coat to apply the decals on this model. This was particularly necessary for the III icon on top the red circle. These two overlaying decals were from a decades old sheet and the red circle almost disintegrated when trying to apply it  I had to repaint it using Mephiston Red before applying the 'Ard Coat layer to get it ready for the roman numeral three.  

I didn't talk about it in the last post, but toward the end of the construction process I decided to use some of the left over bits from the Venerable Dreadnought kit (my Dreadtober project from 2021) to give this thing a bit more flare. The most prominent one being the shield with the terminator honors and skull jewelry  

On his back he has the round Adeptus Mechanicus shield on display. On the examples of painted versions of this model, I don't think I can recall ever seeing anyone paint in the palte that Ad Mech icon on in Ad Mech red. I decided to give it a shot and I think I like the way it turned out. 

The left side of the model doesn't have any decals. it just sort of happened that way!

One of the joys of this model is that the main guns can be swapped out. I see myself using the plasma gun mostly but the assault cannon one is just too cool to leave on the sprue. 

The plants on the base are an assort of grass tufts and Dumb Cane, a new thing I picked up from my local Hobbytown store by a brand called Gamers Grass 

This turned out to be a project that I was very satisfied with in the end, and I look forward to next year!