The Fallen Moon Page 24 (Art Monday)

 

This page is showing us the Imperial troops taking cover from massive explosion from the previous page. I recall being inspiredby by footage of U.S. troops doing similar maneuvers during the nuclear tests back in the 1950s.  

And the last panel has the Gothic vessel shattering a mountain. Anytime I can use Kirby crackle in a comic I'm a happy artist! I aspire to one day incorporate it into a Tales From The Smoking Wyrm cover, I just need the right subject matter to justify it...

Fixing a Rogue Trader-era Dreadnought (part 4)

 

The finished Furibundus Dreadnought.

With a bit of spare time available tonight I was able to get this model finished. Here's the last stages that got me there:

I needed something for the base. Recently ordered a pair of Chaos Space Marine Aspiring Champions from a bits seller on eBay. Each came with an extra front piece which, yay: options, ment that I now had a pair of large useless bitz. I had the idea to make an Objective Marker out of one but as I thought about it, I realized that idea would work great on this Dreadnought's base also.  I put a skull where the head would go, just a spare Chaos Space Marine shoulder pad at and odd angle and glued those where the shoulders would be. This will give an impression that this body is mostly sunk into the mud and dirt.

Really dead chaos guy. 

I applied Stirland Mud Technical Paint all around the remains of this Chaos guy. The idea was to mostly fill and cover up some of the gaps between the corpse and the base. 

 

Starland Mud.

After the Stirland Mud dried I applied the grit to the rest of the base. 

True grit.

The skull of the dead chaos guy was basecoated using Corax White. 

Basecoats on the base items. 

Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint was used on the Skull (i love this stuff!). The rest of the stages of the Black Legion guy are the same ones I used on the majority of my other Black Legion marines. Also not that two oval plates were painted in anticipation of the decals that are going to go in those spots. 

Middle coats on. 

Let's cut to the chase; here it completely done sans a varnish to seal the model. This metal after all and prone to chipping. 

Boom, done! 

The blue U looks good on the white plate. I would say. 

Almost birds eye view 

The small roman numeral three went on the red plate. And in the lower leg plate a larger Ultramarines icon was adhered on to there.

Three's the Company.

The right leg had a skull badge placed it. A departure from how it looked originally, but I thought it was over-using the Ultramarines icon before and this feels a bit more balanced to me. 

Skull!

Now for the glamor shots. 

And after much debate I did decide to keep the eyes green. I thought the red eyes would clash with the red of the gun and the red badge. I did add a white highlight to each eye however. 

And that's another Dreadtober in the can! But technically the month isn't over, perhaps I can knock out another one?

The Fallen Moon (Page 23)

 

So I kind of imagined that the explosion sort of 'bounced' the ship into a nearby mountain. It was that or the momentum would've just carried the thing right into the ground and everyone and everything would just be dead. And that wouldn't have fun right? But a big junk of wreckage smashing itself all over the place seemed like it would be a fun thing to draw. And it was! 

Fixing a Rogue Trader-era Dreadnought (Part 3)

WIP.

Continuing from part 2, the next stage was to apply the layer of Ultramarines Blue. This is the mid- '90s color that I am thankful to still have a nearly full pot of. It's a brighter version of the color of the same name that came in the '89 Space Marine Paint Set. 

Ultramarines Blue stage.

The next step was to apply a highlight of Fenrisian Grey to the edges. 

Fenrisian Grey highlights.

Those green eyes...they somehow work. I was going to make them red. Should I still do that or leave them? Anyway, I will deal with it soon enough...

Green eyes...keep em or not?

I really like how well the Fenrisian Grey works with the other colors and I think it makes the whole thing pop. I have been using this recipe since the start of 40k 8th edition and I definitely going to stick with it.

Backside view 

Next up, I am going to touch up the metal bits, particularly the gear works in the arm and legs, and then I got to make a decision regarding the where the decals are going to go.  I have decided not to switch bases after all but stick this current one on a regular Dreadnought sized base. I go t an idea that I think will work better than just scattered bullet shells on rocks. I hope I can get it done by the end of Dreadtober, but we'll see...

The Fallen Moon Page 22 (Art Monday)

 

I wear my Simonson influence proudly! I had fun visualizing the massive explosion that's wiping out everything in it's path. With the forces in disarray vainly trying to escape the oncoming superheated plume. It was always fun drawing the classic rhinos too. Especially blowing one up like this! 

Fixing a Rogue Trader-era Dreadnought (Part 2)

Furibundus update.

Welcome back to my Dreadtober project update. Progress has been slow, but I did find a few fleeting moments to apply some dark blue to the areas I wanted to darken. And I painted over the old decals also. Trying to remove the decals using Micro Sol was going to take longer than time (and patience) would allow, so Injust painted over them. 

The guns and metal area were painted over using Leadbelcher. And the teeth were given a coat of Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint.

Hopefully by this time next week I'll have made more progress. 

But while in the spirit of Dreadtober, I picked up some old 2nd (or more accurately, 3rd) hand Dreadnoughts. One is a plastic Black Reach dread who will most likely become part of my Deathwatch force. The other is a harshly painted metal Dreadnought that was part of a Blood Angels army. This will likely be stripped down but I haven't determined which one of my Adeptus Astartes armies he'll serve in. It's base has been requisitioned by my Ultramarines Furibundus. 

Old models join the fray. 

 Now if you'll excuse me, within minutes of posting this I'll be heading out the door to race down to Knoxville/Turkey Creek to pick up some miniatures I ordered before they shut down the Warhammer store for a little while (see the screen shot below).  Apparently the Manager is moving and they need a new one. So dark goes the store. 

More Black Legion Marines (Part 1)

 Yes, more! If you recall back in 2015 I found some of the 2nd edition era Cbaos Space Marines that my  brother built. After re working them a bit, they became my first full squad of Chaos Space Marines. It's time I did some more.

The making of new recruits.

Over the past month I have been tinkering with these things, merging the old kits from the "90s and "00s with some of the bits from the current kits.  

The old kits.

Some of these old models had to be removed from the old bases to the 'new' 32mm ones. A voice in my head was trying to convince me to leave these sprues intact ("They belong in a museum! Or on eBay!") but, me being me, ignored those annoying voices and went on with assembling these traitor astartes. 

2nd edition plastic Chaos marines.

If you've read those older posts, you'll know that half the squad was painted as generic Black Legion while the other half are painted up as the Hounds of Abaddon subtraction. They were originally intended for Kill Team, and I often broke the squad in half and ran them as two units. I have decided to expand each up to a full squad and to make another squad of 5 -10 models. I'm not exactly sure how many models I have to work with. 

Don't worry, they're 'armless! 

The squad leader was based off of the art from the boxed set that these models came from. I think I got pretty close to matching that old art

However he did end up with the trophy rack (it's really just a big spike) to mark him out easier as a leader model. 

Here to lead. 

The newer backpacks not only fit well with these older models but they look great as well. I love the way the banner poles, trophies and alternate top plates slot into the current backpacks. 

A very nice fit. 

The guy with the massive chain gun was a challenge to assemble. I understand the design decision to have the ammo belt be a separate piece but I don't understand why it was decided to make it a two piece part. There was much cussing to be heard. There was a lot of parts that went into this guy, but ultimately I like how he's turned out so far.

Big guns never... maybe I should've led with this pic?

Assembling the rest of the new configurations has been a fun challenge, with lots of kitbashing between the various incarnations of Chaos Space Marine. 

Multiple models being assembled.

One of my favorites of the new upgrade options is the psyker guy with the balefire tome.  He's just got such a thrilled expression on his face. It's like he just won $20 on a scratch-off lottery ticket after spending $50 on a stack of scratch-off lottery tickets. 

"I'm a winner!'

I got all of these new recruits primed and about half of them even got their bases basecoated. And in time to go game with Kushail. The game isn't one we're going to chronicle (for 'reasons') but we did get a few interesting pics that I'll show more of in my next Dreadtober post. But these new additions performed fairly well. The Aspiring Champion for the Hounds of Abaddon squad even faced an Ironclad Dreadnought on his own. Well, after his squad died from it's attacks. He too was ripped apart soon afterwards, but I was still impressed. The guy with the balefire tome was handy also. He managed to inflict some Mortal Wounds via his  Smite psychic attack against some foes during the game also. 

Aspiring Champ vs. Ironclad.

Since we're considering this a practice game at best (because 'reasons') I look forward to getting these guys into a proper game sooner than later! And with more paint on them (hopefully)!

The Fallen Moon (Page 21)

 

It's rare to see (in comics) extreme bird's-eye views like the one in the last panel. In fact, this maybe the only time I have drawn one outside of art school. I remember how tough it was to do at the time, but it was fun to use one point perspective like this. 

Fixing a Rogue Trader era Dreadnought. (Part 1)

 Recently while perusing YouTube I came across this great video by Squidmar. In this video they take four miniatures bought from eBay that, although well painted, aren't quite up to the standard they want them to be, and they demonstrate how to improve or 'fix' them. It's worth checking out. It inspired me to consider some of the models in my collection that have been given to me, or acquired second hand, that I haven't had the heart to strip the paint off of yet. But they're good enough that I could probably do to them what Squidmar did in that video. 

The first thing that came to my mind was this old Rogue Trader era Imperial Space Marine Dreadnought. The Furibundus version in particular. This model came to me in a pair that I got off of the old 40k Mailing List in the late '90s. There was a lady that used to post auctions on it and I got quite a few gems from her. These guys were a good deal. This one came pretty much as he appears here, except it was on an old Square base. The other was unpainted. I painted it not long after I got it and he became my Space Wolves Venerable Dreadnought Rex.  Both of them were mounted on titan bases as GW was yet to start producing round bases bigger than 28mm for 40k.  

And I haven't done anything with this model since. Well, ok, I have played with it in a few games but that's it. I usually count that funky looking gun as a lascannon (the original White Dwarf advert called it a Heavy Laser) but I have used it as other things from time to time since it looks like no weapon currently (or if I can be honest, ever) in the game. 

There are decals all over this model that haven't aged well, or they were applied kind of crooked. I will remove these and apply newer ones. I could probably save these but I don't have the patience to paint around them and I have plenty of spare Ultramarines decals. And the decals on this model are crooked and just need to go.

If you look closely you can see a mold line running right down the middle of this thing. I will have to eliminate that if I can. As it bugs the hell out of me. 

Looking at it now, it amuses me that the guns were never painted. I guess the original owner just thought that the bare metal was just fine at conveying that these details were supposed to be metal.  I did similar things when I used to build model planes as a kid, but it's a heretical concept as a modern day miniature painter. 

• Ok, so I am either going to replace that base or just stick him as is to another one.
• File off the missed flash and mold lines. (Carefully and outside, as this thing is LEAD).
• Remove the decals.
• Start painting! 

This should be a fun Dreadtober project, yes?

 I was in for a surprising treat on the morning that I had scheduled to post this.; Eons of Battle posted a video featuring this model which was a fun vid and worth watching for a bit of inspiration. I like the way he did the eyes but I'm not likely to try and copy that as I have my own idea on how it should look. But that'll be revealed in a future post. ..

The Fallen Moon Page 20 (Art Monday)

 

This is an interesting page as I finally show the Farseer of the rival Eldar force. It makes sense to me, even now, that a farseer would ride on top of a Tempest superheavy tank.  It was fun showing them all reacting to the new situation. It's not every day a Gothic Battle ship falls from orbit at you. 

I decided to use some pseudo runes to imply their language. If I recall correctly I found them in a variety of art within the 2nd edition Codex: Eldar. These Eldar were going to be fleshed out more in the second part of the story and I had names and backstories sketched out somewhere. They were going to be a unique craftworld as they didn't have enough back then compared to a myriad of Chapters to pick from the Space Marines.