Dreadtober Blood Axe Dreadnought (Part 1)

It's October, and it's time to celebrate two things: Ork (Orktober) and Dreadnoughts (Dreadtober). And just like last year's Dreadtober challenge , I am once again going to try to have a dreadnought fully painted before the month is over. Yes, this is the same miniature as last year, just with the arms positioned differently. I got them both as a set.

Rogue Trader era Dread #2.

This year's model however will not be painted as another Bad Moon dread as I originally envisioned it would be. No, this one will be a Blood Axe dread! The inspiration for this comes from the very first White Dwarf I ever owned: White Dwarf 119! One day I might do a top-to-bottom retrospective review of this issue, but for now I am just focused on the cover.

White Dwarf #119. 

The cover features an army of Blood Axes in the heat of battle while a mekboy works to get a Dreadnought operational again. It is an awesome painting and to my knowledge it has never been reprinted anywhere. I came across this issue again recently, and after taking it all in again, decided that I needed to paint a chunk of my Ork army in this scheme. But to start it off I wanted to paint my last unpainted Rogue Trader era dread like the one on the cover of #119.

Rocks added to the base.

I first had to address the base. Or rather dress it up actually. Unlike last year's model, where I used greenstuff to smooth out the topographical differential between the round and square base, I just glued a bunch of rocks down along the  edge where the two meet.

Grit glued on. 

I then used thinned PVA glue to apply the rocky grit to the base on the areas where the base was bare. And now the miniature is ready for painting. But we'll get into that in part 2!

Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about Dreadtober, head over to the Dreadtober blog to check it out and see what all those other participants are doing this month as well.