Celestial Lions Boxnaught (Part 5)

 Alright, this guy is now done! He is glued together and his iconography is completed. The only thing I haven't done is a sealer to protect the model from chipping, but the weather is too icky right now to attempt it. 

Done and ready to kill.

He might seem a tad bit plain, but I didn't want to go crazy with decals and icons, so I went with a "less is more" mindset, and just stuck a skull in a triangle on his leg. I suppose it's a campaign badge? 

Check out that sexy badge. 

I was unable to locate the Lion decals I bought ages ago, so I just went with a  crude hand drawn badge. This matches the rest of my Celestial Lions force who have similar iconography. My head-canon for this is that these are hand painted by the individual Trooper, and artists they are not. 

Honor thy chapter.

And that's it, another Dreadtober is wrapped up and done.  I am already thinking about next year,  and I have a lot of options to mull over. But as a final parting shot, here is Shiney compared to my pledge from last year, who is double the size of this relic from the '90s. 

"Stand back squirt, I've got this!"

Celestial Lions Boxnaught (Part 3)

 This week I have made a bit more progress from were we left things last week. 

I used Leadbelcher over all the components that are painted black. Then I used classic Shining Gold as an edge highlight. 

After that, I paint the left should blue. This is where the chapter icons will go.  I used Stormhost Silver to highlight all the rivets and bolts. I so used is as a subtle edge highlight. 

I used Stormhost Silver to highlight the skulls and a acquilla icons that are scattered across the model. 

I am not too sure I like that result, so I might try some ideas to see if I can't visually punch some of those icons out. 

Celestial Lions Boxnaught (Part 2)

 Welcome to the second part of this year's Dreadtober challenge. In Part 1 I spelled out the plan, and now I'm plowing ahead with it.  To start, I shook up a can of Krylon 18kt Gold Plate spray paint and took it and this hunk of metal outside and blasted away. Afterwards I used classic Chestnut ink (I am so glad I still have some of this!) and used it to darken all the joints and recesses. 

A 41st Millennium solid gold dancer. 

And then I used Abaddon Black to basecoat the areas that are going to end up a silvery metal as opposed to gold. 

Black basecoats. 

That's all the progress I made on the miniature itself, but I did almost finish his base. Just a few minor things to finish on it (the skull and bullet casings specifically) and it's done. 

The base. 

We'll see how much further I get with this next week, but so far this is rolling along well. 

Celestial Lions Boxnaught (Part 1)

 Ah, Dreadtober! My favorite reoccurring project of the year returns! 

"I'm pretty sure I'm a Blood Angel."

For this year's dreadnought I have decided to repaint this old classic. This is a 30 year old boxnaught. He may be small compared to the toys you kids have today, but this thing has the weight and heft to truly harm someone if employed in a violent manner. To be clear, this came to me second-hand and I was not the original painter of this thing. After-all, I don't play Blood Angels and I don't think I have painted one since around 1993 (for Space Crusade). And back then, they were a bit more orange.  Anyway, this guy is going to get stripped all the way down to the bare metal.... 

"...well, I was anyway."

...well, mostly. 

Next week, painting! 

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...

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!).

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. 

Celestial Lions Chaplain (Part 1)

 Recently I decided to slightly upgrade my Celestial Lions from being a 1st edition Kill Team to a small force with just enough models to fill out 750 points. One of these models will be an additional character model and this time it's a Chaplain.  A metal Chaplain from the mid-'90s specifically. 

A metal Chaplain.

He was primed white way back in the late '90s with the intention of painting him for my Brother's Ultramarines but clearly that intention was unfulfilled. 

Pin in place for his arm.

While digging around the Neverness Archive in search of an appropriate character model to add to my first born Celestial Lions, this model really seemed to fit the bill. I attached him to a 32mm base and set about drilling out some holes to pin his arm on. 

Arm pinned and attached. 

Next I dug through my pile of printed Celestial Lion shoulder pads that The Bob hooked me up with aeons ago.  Most of my Celestial Lions have crudely painted on chapter icons but I thought it would be appropriate for this particular model to have a more professional look. I say that because I imagine that the other models I have may have had to update their armor in an ad-hoc manner as they likely had to scavenge serviceable parts from wherever they can find them. 

Next up, I will prep the base and begin the first proper stages of painting...

Celestial Lions Retro Tactical Squad (Part 1)

 It's been bugging me for a good while now that my Celestial Lions are sitting in limbo. They were made for the first edition of Kill Team (the one that used 7th edition rules) but haven't been playable since.  When Da Masta Cheef returned for his monthly work visit, he proposed a 750 point game. With such a small points level in mind I  contemplated playing one of my smaller factions and the Celestial Lions stuck out as a potential candidate for such a game. Sadly I couldn't join that game anyway, but he'll be back one day, and I plan to have these guys waiting for him. 

I know some Necron players who would consider this paint job 'done. 

These miniatures are from the 2nd edition era of Warhammer 40,000. Specifically these are the Space Marines from that edition's main box. Although only the Sergeant and flamer are from that. The others, all cast in blue plastic, were from a Waldenbooks exclusive set. I uncovered a bag full of these guys, that Warfrog gave me ages ago, when I was looking for a single one of these guys to paint for their anniversary event last summer. These miniatures are definitely iconic and were the default space marine miniature for most of the 1990s. 

The full squad.

After cleaning up the flash and mold lines I  applied grit to their bases. A few guys got a skull on their bases too, because it's just the Grim Dark thing to do. 

Gritted and ready for paint. 

The loose shoulder pad is for a character I'm doing for these guys,  but I'll talk about that in a future post.  So  I cracked open my old Krylon 18k Gold paint and blasted away. 

Solid fool's gold. 

And with that, these models are now primed and basecoated. Well the armor anyway. The rest of their details will be picked out soon. 

Awaitng the next steps...

Space Marine Heroes: Celestial Lions Sgt (Part 3)

Last time, in Part 2, I was almost finished with this guy. As you can see, I have achieved that goal.

Finished! 

And all I had to do was paint his head. Simple though it looks, I used about five different colors on it before I got it where I wanted it. Also I completed the painting on the peturges when I discovered I missed a bit. Other than a few minor touch-ups, I was able to finish him in about an hour and a half.

Work in progress. 

As you can see here, the shoulder plate icons were finished, with a few minor touch-ups as well. I am pleased that this turned out well considering I didn't use my template.

Rear view.

The way the paint on the Tactical icon turned out, it does give the impression that these badges were painted on as opposed to the overly clean "wrap" look that you typically see. I think it gives these models a bit more character, but your opinion may nor align with mine...

Right side view. 

I think the grey facial hair, inspired by the card he came with (as shown in Part 1), I like him a lot, he has a lot of character, and the pose is quite different from a lot of the marines that have preceded him over the past few decades.

"On ward to death!!!"

Space Marine Heroes: Celestial Lions Sgt (Part 2)

Heads up! 

Here is the Celestial Lions Sgt mostly done, but let's not get, um,  ahead (cringe) of ourselves; here is the Work In Progress steps for this model.

Mid-coats on the stones.

The stonework on the base was basecoated in Craftsmart Graphite before being brought up using Apple Barrel Pewter Gray.  A discrete wash of Nuln Oil was applied, with a more concentrated application done on the joints and cracks. A final highlight of Apple Barrel Country Gray was dry brushed over all of that. By the way, this is pretty much my Imperial Guard Paint Scheme also.

Stonework finished.

The pteruges* were basecoated in Khorne Red, then highlighted on Pink Horror then washed in Carroburg Crimson. I was unsure how this red would look on this model, but I like how these turned out.

The Redding of the pteruges.

This was coming along nicely, but I was unsure about that chainsword. I decided to add some scratches and splash on some Blood for the Blood God and called it done.

Blood for the Blood God!!!

I added a decal for the Tactical symbol which I painted over. But the lion icon I decided to be brave and hand paint it freehand as opposed to digging out the template I made for it last year. I am also pleased with how this came out.

Progress on the icons.

So here he is mostly done. I think you can figure out what I have left to do...

(Hey, the model  came with two and I am indecisive).

* Thanks to Siph_Horridus  for finding out what these things are called.

Space Marine Heroes: Celestial Lion Sgt. (Part 1)

Assembling of a hero...

Hello. Way back in the winter of 2018 (it's been a long year for me) I bought a Space Marine Heroes Sergeant from Ebay. At the time this range was exclusive to Japan so he made for a cool rarity to have. Also with the arrival of the Primaris range of Space Marines, the classic style of Space Marine didn't seem likely to ever see any additional releases. And I wanted this guy to lead a unit of Ultramarines that I wanted to build around the color scheme test miniature I painted in the summer of 2017.

Materials included with the Japanese release.

Fast forward to now, and this range has been mostly relaunched for the rest of the world. I say "mostly" because some of the Japanese miniatures are simply not part of this release. Those "missing" miniatures have been recast in uniquely colored plastic and included in a game you can get from Barnes & Noble (tip: get a B&N coupon!) if you really must have these guys.

The release for my part of the world.

 So I bought a few boxes, and as my luck typically runs, the first box I open is another Sergeant!

The sprue right from the box.

Clearly I had options available to me, but the one I decided to go with is to make him into another Celestial Lions Sergeant. I made my Celestial Lions for the previous incarnation of Kill Team, and if my schedule ever allows it, I hope to use them for the current version as well. Having an alternative Sgt doesn't seem at all like a bad idea to me, and who knows, maybe I can now break them into two smalls squads for allies or something in a proper 40K game? Regardless, options are good!

Primed and (mostly) basecoated!

So I started with basecoating the sprue with a gold spray paint. Pretty simple way to start. Then I detached the parts and focused on the base first. Applebarrel Graphite for the rocks and Terracotta for the dirt.

Coats for the base. Basecoats. 

Next up it was an application of Chaos Black to the areas that will be metallic or black. These are the joins between the armor, weapons etc.

The parts are gathered and basecoated. 

Next I used Chestnut Ink in the armor recesses to create depth in the tone. I then applied a dark blue to the shoulder and knee pad areas. I'm a bit torn on how to paint the leather loin cloth strappy thing... going to have to think about as well as which head I want to use. And I am also wondering if I should do something different with the chainsword this time also. Hopefully I have made up my mind in Part 2 and we can get this hero assembled.

Progress thus far.

Until then, thanks for checking out the start of this one.