If you're anywhere in the UK right now (or indeed, the rest of Europe!) you're probably well aware of how difficult it's been to paint, sleep or survive lately! I've been plugging away at this guy for most of the month in little bits & pieces. At some point he'll have a big flag as he should.
I don’t think we take enough time to appreciate the periods in our life when our noses aren’t runny. Is your nose runny right now? No? Think about that. Honestly reflect on it. Enjoy this era of peace. There are dark times on the horizon
I've painted a lot of helmets in the last year or so! Not so many faces. I miss painting faces, so here are some faces I've painted recently. Sikh fellas, for Bolt Action. They don't have bodies yet.
Bit of a palate cleanser from all the power armour - an officer for my SW: Legion rebels.
I sort of intended her to be a bit of a Leia proxy (hence the red lippy!) but on reflection I think the sculpt is less Carrie Fisher, more Phoebe Waller-Bridge - not that there's anything wrong with PWB! Just a different face. I still think she passes the 3-feet check just fine.
Fun times in my life right now, in which I finally have some time off work but it's so hot that all my paints just dry on the brush before I can do anything! Fortunately, I finished these eradicators last week. These guys have been plucked from the 9th company - traditionally the devastator reserve.
I'm reading Lion: Son of the Forest right now and I'm not sure I'm a massive fan so far? But I do enjoy the bit where the local yokels lend Him a Goliath truck to use as transport,
To search for answers is to beat a path to damnation.
I am old enough to remember when Dark Angels couldn't even take veterans in power armour, because they had so many suits of terminator armour that their vets would always use those instead. It's why GW gave them the 'company veterans' unit some time around 5th or 6th edition, and it's why my sternguard are being painted up as 3rd company's 1st tactical squad.
content aggregator blogs that just comment with three flower emojis and somehow rack up thousands more notes than OP. 16-22 year old fandom artists putting COMMENTERS DNI in their bio and COMMENT IN TAGS at the bottom of their posts. hapless i-check-tumblr-once-a-week users commenting on a reblog and getting their inboxes full of scolding. people making multiple single-posts instead of reblogging their own posts to continue a thought.
the culture of this place is gonna get so fucked. PVP enabled website.
Some of you may have read about tumblr's new update regarding the reallocation of notes from reblogs! If you haven't, give it a read, have a quick think about it.
It's not been 24hrs since this change was announced and I'm too tired stubborn to make sudden decisions, but if this lasts more than, say, 6 weeks I will probably abandon this place altogether and start using Instagram again. The images are a bit small, but posting is at least as quick & easy as it is here and at least there you get all the likes & comments on your work directly.
I'll try and remember to make another post if & when I make a decision on this but, if you ever find yourself wondering why this blog no longer updates, that would be why!
Quick & dirty WIP pics of some sternguard. You can see a lot of the initial silver drybrush still, then they get a splodgey layer of contrast medium + vallejo scurvy green, then the same of con medium + green ink, at which point they begin to look like Dark Angels. There's surely less complicated ways of doing this, but that's how it's done in my house.
Zagros 18th reg't, cognomen "Fire Ants." Formed in 644.M37 from remnants of 1st and 8th Zagros following combat losses during the Magrathunian campaign (ref. Siege of Vidar, Scouring of Dar-Magra, Catacomb War). Attached to Army Group Samek 904.M41, en route to Mestriatus Sub-sector re: Blue Dawn Uprising. Fighting strength 28,500 plus support personnel.
It is the tradition of the matriarchal Zagrosi nobility to pack all sons after the first off to the Collegia Militarum. Surplus male offspring learn a modicum of discipline & logistical skills, become accustomed to violence and, should they survive, return plunder and spoils to the family vaults. Captain Adan Gala-Kirrut is a typical Zagrosi officer: brash, aggressive, loosely faithful to the Imperial creed and slightly more contemptuous of the enemy than he is of his own men.
Finally finished this command section! Digging through my blog archive, I find this took me nearly 2 years to get done. Great job, me. I blame the giant flag, which briefly caused me to lose the will to look at it any longer.
These are, of course, the newest version of the Imperial Guard, with snug, slimline helmets and an unhealthy amount of straps and belts. I got these in part to see how they stood up next to the older plastic Cadians I was used to, on the basis that if they looked weird it wouldn't matter that much because they're characters and regimental bigwigs and they're allowed to look a bit different from the regular grunts. And guess what, they look super weird!
Yes, they're a bit taller and skinnier (definitely better-proportioned than the older models tbh), but two things bother me much more. First, they're covered in straps and pouches - this makes them much more complex to paint, which is a concern given the typical model count of a Guard army! They're mostly sculpted on, too, so you can't get the uniforms & armour done first and attach them later like I did with the extra kit on the first squad of Guardsmen. I think they also end up making the models look a bit busy as well (the medic in particular is just a mess of criss-crossing belts, I think she looks kind of awful :/), I much prefer the simpler look of the older models.
The other thing is, I think I really prefer the older style helmets! They're bigger, bulkier, they look less comfortable (and yes that is a good thing when you're depicting a dystopia) and also heavier - they're almost give you the feeling of the soldiers underneath struggling under the crushing weight of a stagnant empire, if you're into that sort of thing.
I can't help but feel like the smaller, better-fitted helmets of the new guys look a bit too comfortable. Perhaps they're trying to make the Guard a bit more aspirational and heroic, less like the endless horde of doomed cannon fodder that climbs over the broken bodies of their comrades to ultimate victory? I'm not sure how I feel about it. It sort of feels like GW maybe losing the plot of their own dystopian satire in favour of making more tacticool army porn. Anyway, I think a posh comfy helmet is fine on the guy in charge, but if I do any more Guard I'll probably try and get hold of some older models just to maintain the downtrodden vibe.
I told ya kid, quit staring! You don't want those 'Angels' to catch you ogling their pet gremlins... Whatever they are... Ah Throne, these fuhkin' headaches...
If it's not obvious, these are my Watchers in the Dark. Because these things are expensive if you buy the real GW ones but cheap! if you buy a second-hand sprue of nighthaunt chainwrasps and spend a couple evenings doing some cutting and bending and sculpting.
I do love it when big mean space marines are followed around by tiny weird guys (servo skulls, acolytes, camp followers, pets etc) and I did buy a full sprue of 10 ghosties so maybe I'll make more someday!
Be silent in thine hour of damnation, be still in the shackles of thy terror, be prostrate before thine Emperor, be dead, dead dead at the coming of thine rightful executioners. The time for surrender is long passed.
Now I have twice as many Deathwing! These are the push-fit models from the Leviathan box that came out a few years ago. I love the final look of these bone-white killers, even if I find painting them to be a bit tedious. Hope you're all feeling suitably cosy and comfortable in your own suits of tactical dreadnought armour! Happy hobbying, everybody.
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