Armies on Parade.

Boards on show....

Hi guys, well as promised I've sorted through a shed load of photos I took the other day at Games Workshops Armies on Parade event. As I thought I had a great time taking to other modelers and painters and it was a shame I had to leave at 3pm but family commitments and all that.

There were eight boards on show including mine, I wont be showing my board in this post as I think you have seen enough of it, ha.

Anyway on with the pictures after the Jump.

Armies on Parade.

Finished!......

And so......it's finished!!, it's been a mad 46 day's having to fit extra painting hours around my already hectic family life and to be honest I like to paint at a more leisurely pace (lazy git) but yeah it's done and given the time frame I'm happy, don't get me wrong I've seen other entries online and in old WD mags and know I'll not be winning any awards but that's all good and I'm looking forward to Saturday, talking to fellow painters/modelers getting ideas and inspiration, should be a good few hours down at the shop.

So what have we got here then, well there's three units absent from my clearly over ambitious list that I compiled at the start, that's the Raven, Dev Squad and Assault Squad, but what I do have is seven units, four Elites one Heavy support and Troops and one HQ.
I would say the best thing about this for me is the fact it's forced me to hit a dead line, of sorts, to finish off a few outstanding units that have been cluttering up my desk.

The things I've learnt from this toe in the water are....

Give yourself more TIME to plan, I would say six months would be a more realistic timeline to put your all in to Armies on Parade.

You don't really need a GW tile, sure I've used one here but it was second hand and next year if I don't build over this I'll be using MDF.

If you do use a tile hills are great but sloping sides mess with model positioning, if I were to have painted the whole list I compiled at the start I would of struggled to place them on this board, so forward plannings the way to go.

So all in all I'm happy and cant wait till Saturday, next year I'll remember my seven P's and give it a good crack whether that will be my Scythes again I'm not sure but I have already got a couple on idea's floating around.

Scythes Techmarine.

Thunderfire Tech Finished.....

Hi guys, well at long last I've finished my Scythes Thunderfire Cannon Techmarine, to be honest though it was only the servo-harness I was dragging my feet over, other things come up and it gets put to one side you know how it is, but yeah I'm really happy with how its turned out.

For the main body of the Techmarine I've used an Iron Hands Immortal and think it fits the part nicely, I've changed the bottom two Servo-Arms with those off a Servitor I had to change the look slightly.

The little wrist held computer came from a FW Master of Signal and I thought it would work well on this mini as he's already tilting his head slightly, the stock right arm finishes the look off, it's as if he's about to input data or something like that, ha.

Just like I have on my Terminator's and Dread's I've used GW's Doombull Brown (watered down) to show weathered streaks on the yellow side panels.

Terminators..Scythes of the Emperor.

Painting Update....

Hi guys just a little post regarding a squad of Terminators I painted some time ago, given that I've been chipping the armour on my models of late I thought it would be a good idea to bring the termies in to line, a continuity thing if you like and I think they look better for it in any case.

Apart from chipping the armour I've also used GW's Doombull Brown (watered down) as kind of a streaking fluid to represent dirt and grime that's built up over time.
I think it works quite well.

 I really like this Terminator sergeant and think he compliments the squad well.

The full squad assembled ready to escort several salvation squads in to a apparently dormant Tyranid Bioship!.

Dreadnoughts....Scythes Style!

Finished Ironclad Dreadnoughts.

Hi guys, well so I've finished my two Ironclads and have got to say I'm really happy with how they have turned out.
This post is going to be picture heavy, just couldn't stop taking photo's lol, and so lets crack on with the show.

I went heavy on the damage/wear, these puppy's have seen some action!.

 First time I've used magnets, so on both left arm's I'll be able to change from Heavy Flamer to Melta Gun.

A couple of of different shots, yep I went a tad nuts with the camera.

If your looking at a Dreadnought from this angle your number's up!!.

Couldn't resist a family photo and with five Heavy Flamers my Scythes like their Nid's CRISPY!!

While painting these Dread's I've had a few ideas on how to convert a couple more.....just how many Dreadnoughts is enough?.

Scythes Stormraven Conversion.

Part 1.....

Hi guys, since my Scythes are a fleet based chapter (on the whole) I think its about time I built and painted a flyer for them.

So to start with I thought I would open up a progress log of my Stormraven conversion, I'm pretty excited about this as I've never painted a 40k flyer before never mind converting one.

This is my progress so far, yeah it doesn't seem much but I can tell you there's a good few hours work here extending the back end, my thoughts so for about the build are...not happy about that gun pod topside and also the large air intake behind it, likewise I'm not that sure the rear wing will make it.
Anyway guys over the course of the build things may change, we will see.

As I've already said the roof mounted sitting duck is of the menu so I bought these Forge World Punisher Cannon's!, believe me they are massive and come with added Awesomeness! Joy! , I think I'll mount them under the wings next to the missile pods, not sure what I can do with the cylinder Mag's right now they might just end up in my bits box which is no bad thing.

Anyway guys here's a picture.

Armies on Parade.

Update Part 3......

Hi guys, well I've finished my Armies on Parade board/tile and given the time constraints I'm quite happy with it, Yeah its basic but this is my first tile and this years all about attending the event.

The Martian Red was painted up the way as I paint all my model bases, so in effect I've just treated it as one large Model base.

Well first up after I added the green stuff (see Part 2) was to apply the sand an rocks onto the tile with PVA, I did this in three stages because I needed to take my time working the PVA around the terrain features and didn't want the PVA to dry as I did so.

I then sprayed the whole tile with Halfords grey Primer, its looking better already, no more pink Cliff faces, Joy!.

I'm quite happy with these bubbling Martian Swamp Pits I think they worked out rather well, If I ever do them again I would maybe go with some extra model detail half sunk in the pit.

To get the illusion of liquid I've simply painted GW's Ardcoat over the surface and think the contrast with the deep red Martian sand works well.

For the Cliff faces I painted them with Rhinox Hide, then using my red martian paint mix I added it to the Rhinox Hide in stages to drybrush lighter and lighter highlights to the Cliff edges.

I then drybrushed Cadian Fleshtone to the extreme edges of the Cliff faces and washed the entire Cliff face with Reikland Fleshshade.

I've added random clumps of vegetation here and there but wanted to keep it quite sparse, it is a desert after all.

As I've said before I'm happy with how these turned out, the paints I used were, base coat of Vallejo Black, drybrushed with 50/50 mix of the black and Caliban Green, a further drybrush of Caliban Green and a final drybrush of Sotek Green to one side of the bubbles.

It's subtle and you cant see the highlight very well in this picture as the Ardcoats doing its job but it look ok.

Chipping yellow armour.

Short Tutorial on how I Chip Yellow Armour.....

 

Hi guys this is just a short post regarding how I achieve chipped yellow armour for my Scythes, I was asked on a Forum that I visit from time to time how I did this, I gave a brief to the point explanation but thought I would explain further via a blog post, this is by no way an expert tutorial as I'm just starting out myself in the world of  hobby painting and building but I can see the value of this as I am sure I'm not the only person taking the first few steps down the chipping/weathering road.

Firstly what I do is prime the model part, for this Dreadnought leg plate I primed it with GW's white spray undercoat, I then paint it with the desired colour, the colour I've used here is Army Painters Daemonic Yellow, make sure you thin the paint as several thin coats are better than one thick one.

Next I use grey ultra fine Scotchbright, I've used sponge in the past but find the impression it makes on the model is not as fine and random as Scotchbright.

I then dab a small piece of Scotchbright using tweezers into the desired colour, the one I've used here is GW's Rhinox Hide, I then dabbed most of the paint off using kitchen paper and dabbed it onto the model part making sure not to go too heavy to start with, I've mostly worked the Rhinox Hide around the edges of the leg plate as I think this would be the place where most wear would occur.

I the did the same overlapping the Rhinox Hide with Leadbelcher making sure I used slightly less so I could still see the initial Rhinox Hide chip's.

This is the finished effect I achieved using this simple technique, its quick and easy and I think quite effective.

I used the same technique on the central shield of this banner pole in the picture below.