DreadTober 2025 - To DONE!

 

DreadTober has come to an end (*sniff*) and it's time to reveal the my completed project. I painted a Dark Angels 1st Company Dreadnought, a member of the Deathwing, I'm pleased with the outcome after taking some time off from painting to build lost of stuff over the summer.

I went with a fairly straight forward sarcophagus. I want to put something on the scroll, but I didn't make a decision before the time was up. I'll wait for some future inspiration to give me a name for this entombed hero. 

I used my usual red armor for the weapons and added some soot and heat damage where applicable (in my naive imagination, at least).

I did manage to remember to paint the Mechanicum icon on the engine, and added a purity seal to the rear of the armor to bring the Emperor's blessing to the power plant.

This warrior bears veteran honors and bears the 1st legion numeral. I got through weapon and armor highlights. I tried a medium mix I use for making shades/washes to seal weathering powder on the base and it seems to have clumped up as white "snow" patches for lack of a better word?  I'll probably for back and try to reactivate that somehow.  But as it stands, maybe it is ash and not snow?? It's odd...not terrible, but odd. 

I'm still adding some water effects to the pool, but here is how it stands at the end of the challenge.  The crater was deep enough, I guess, that I should have added the water effects more slowly in thinner layers, but I only left two days to complete that part and with drying time I needed more.  It's fine, but the "water" kept sinking in after drying so I've been adding layers to fill the crater. It will be fine in the end - and my be fine since I added a bit more just after taking these photos. But to be fair to the challenge this is where things left off at just before midnight on the 31st of October.  I was down to the wire on this one! SO much so that the picture were actually not taken until 11/2, when I finally made time for them and this post.

Another DreadTober in the books. Special thanks to Marc van Holst for hosting again this year.  Definitely head over to the DreadTober blog to see all the great work there. I'll end with a big seal o' DONE fo rthis project.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!!

DreadTober 2025 - Week 3

 

Greetings and welcome back!

DreadTober is drawing to a close and I have been way of my blogging game. But not so with the painting progress. This dreadnought is very close to done.  The legs are glued to the base and the arms are glued to the body.  The torso is left free for now to assist with the remaining painting.

I'm working on the highlights and cleanup now, to push this project over the finish line.

Oops, still need to paint the Opus Machina on the power plant.

As always, I had great fun with the transfers.  I would like to add more, but decided to cool it for now.

 

I wanted to strike a balance with veteran honors and typical Deathwing iconography. Honestly though, I think this veteran needs more honors to warrant the blessing of this armor.

I'm pretty close to the finish line here.  There are lots of highlights to go, and a few details to complete.  but taken in all the progress has shaped up nicely against my vision for the project.

I'm about ready to glue the torso on and lock in the final arm positioning.  Once the paintwork is completed, I'll matte varnish the whole thing, the try my hand at filling the small crater with water effects such the the skull appears to sit in a pool of water. It's just something different for my dreadnought bases.

Anyway, check back next week to see the final results. I'm confident that I'll complete this project by the end of All Hallow's Eve... 

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

 

Deathwing Terminator Squad 2 - TO DONE

 

Deathwing in the House!

 

Greetings and welcome back! At long last, I am posting the final pics of my second Deathwing squad project (begun in September for those keeping track...). The first squad was a five member trial. Then I was on to this full ten marine squad. I love how they came out!  Sure, the perfectionist in me is yelling about all the lost opportunity here. Honestly I spend FAR to much time browsing the projects of others on Instagram, not to mention all of your fabulous blogs. But I'm honestly happy to call this squad done so I can move on to other projects.

So that's TO DONE.  Here's the happy Deathwing family in the display case with some HQ at the rear...

At some point I need to get things out of the case for a better photo shoot...but no time now, must build and paint MOAR!! 😂 Scroll down after the break if you want to see all the gory details on these terminators.  I have to hand it to GW.  These updated sculpts are great and were a joy to paint. Somewhere down in the basement, tucked away in their foamy beds, decades of first borne terminators weep and cry themselves to sleep...  

Cheers and Happy Gaming!!

Deathwing Terminator Squad 2 WIP - Part 2

 

Greetings and welcome back.  As the title pic reveals, I resolved to complete the second Deathwing terminator squad which I had begun prior to DreadTober. These warriors got close to completion, but not close enough. So I put them back on the painting table and got stuck in.

The bases are now complete to match my Dark Angels force. This is a simple basing scheme which I have used on my Dark Angels over the decades.  It's not snazzy, nor flashy, nor even imaginative. But it provides a good neutral backdrop for my force. The idea was born from the notion that battle fields in the 41st millennium are blasted wastelands and many the victim of countless conflicts dating back to the Dark Age of Heresy.

These first two examples are the Sergeant and squad second respectively. If I broke the squad of ten into two five marine squads for a game, the second would lead the second squad of five. I figured at that point I would declare his chainfist a "power weapon" with power sword stats since sergeants can't take chain fists.

 I ended up really liking the cyclone missile launcher, so iconic for the Deathwing of old. Might have to source another one or two of those...moving on though, details are mostly done at this point but I keep findings things that got missed or need tidying up, etc.

They just aren't Dark Angels without a plasma boi, so that's why I don't have two cyclones. 💥

And we'll stop the show and tell here.  Just a sample of the interesting models from the squad to show the progress. I'll probably call them done and post final pics late next week. Maybe. For me who have collected Dark Angels for over 20 years, Deathwing terminators hold a special place and I can't call them done until they match that special vision in my minds eye.  If you've collected a faction this long, then I'm confident you understand and have your own model or unit that just stands out from the rest.

So stay tuned for the final squad reveal coming soon! I'm excited to have (nearly) fifteen terminators done. In all these years, I haven't previously completed a squad; even when they were only in five marine units and that is now over eight editions form 3rd to 10th!

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Deathwing Terminator Squad 2 WIP

 

Greetings and welcome back. 

Today, I'm (finally) showing progress on the second 10-marine squad of Deathwing Terminators that I have been working on. I managed to space out last week and skip posting.  But I've been working regularly on these marines.

I likely shared this squad in a Workbench post earlier this year.  I hadn't planned on painting them, but after working on the first five marine squad, I realized I was in the groove for this paint scheme and needed to rock on in order for these 15 marines to turn out looking remotely like they were part of the same force.

And so the primers were applied - these 10 were actually sprayed at the same time as the other five.  I had set them aside - but I did have the foresight to base them at the same time so the colors would match (I had done a lighter zenith layer over a darker base coat, if you recall from the earlier WIP post on the other five marines).

And then some shading. I'm not sure I made the right call on the order here.  It was a pain working the first five because every mistake had to be carefully repainted and cleaned up to maintain the armor color. This time I wanted to try putting down all the base colors BEFORE shading and highlighting...but I spaced again and laid down the shade without thinking.

So then came the dry brushing...in for a penny, in for a pound as the saying goes. What followed was more struggling as I tried to carefully paint and shade the many other details without causing me to repaint the base armor over an over...and over.

Here is what things started to look like before any additional shading. Most colors are blocked in. 

And here we are after the different base colors were shaded.  If you click through to the original and zoom about you can see where I've started fixing all the issues where shade pooled out a bit onto the armor around various details.  After all the corrections, I will go back and lightly shade the fixed areas again with the original Sepia. That and some other corrections led me to where things stand today. 

I have the previously painted squad at the back as a reference to keep me honest. I would like all fifteen terminators to appear as though they are wearing armor maintained by the same armorer. 😂

There will be more work to get the armor looking less touched up.  It's a process...one change I made this time around, was to not fix everything the moment I made a mistake.  Instead I batch painted the fixes after the details were done so that I could at least make progress. I have to imagine this is a little how White Scars and Imperial Fists painters struggle.

Most recently, I completed the power sword blade and plasma cannon coils. As you can see from the Sergeant's belt, there are still a few details to go. So much to paint on these Terminators! I'm also considering what to do with the feathers.  There are a simple shaded light grey currently.  But I may add black and/or red stripes, tips, etc.  Not sure...oh, and then the bases of course to finish things off.  No sense painting them now, since it would be just one more area with errors to correct. Getting a little of the base color and shades on the boots can easily be passed off as weathering! Heh.

That's it for now...trying to cram on these guys to complete the squad of ten before DreadTober kicks off...not much time left!

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

 

Deathwing Terminator Squad - TO DONE

 

Hello!  Today I'm sharing the final results from my Deathwing Terminator project. These iconic models from the 40K universe really come alive for me. It's great seeing them rise from their previously diminutive status with these new sculpts. This puts paid to my first project of the 2024/25 hobby season. Here's my first big wooden stamp of TO DONE.

Check out the closeup pics of each terminator after the break if you're curious. I've already moved on to the next squad of ten terminators.  It'll take the rest of the month to complete those; then we're on to DreadTober 2024!

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Deathwing Terminator Squad WIP

 

Greetings and welcome back.  Today I'm sharing progress on my first project of the 2024/25 hobby season.  While putting together my TODO list for the season, I was inspired to get started on my Deathwing terminators.  I made great progress last season with my 40k Dark Angels and I thought it would be great to put more progress in this season before I inevitably get distracted by legions Imperialis once again!

To recap, I built this squad from the Warhammer 40K Leviathan box set shortly after it came out. It was great to see some right-sized terminators, especially since the modern Primaris marines were towering over the original sculpts.  But they were a bit plain...so when Deathwing Assault was released, I worked with extras from that kit and my bits box to produce a squad that had a better Dark Angels Deathwing feel.

Now that is more like it - but that was last season.  Now it was time to put paint on these terminators!

Looking back as I write this post, I realize I didn't dig out the teleport homer or the watcher for this project.  I'll probably take on all the watchers and teleport homers as a single project later this season. 

I tried something new here, and primed the terminators with brown instead of the usual black. You can get an idea of the color by zooming in on the bases. I hoped this would provide shadows the lent themselves to the overall ivory/bone look I was going for. 

Over the primer, I first sprayed Pro Acryl 'Ninjon' Dark Ivory as a base coat.  I then sprayed Pro Acryl Ivory as a zenithal highlight straight down over the top of the minis.  This looked great at the start....but by the end of the project, I'm still not convinced it did anything to affect the final outcome.

I then thinned GW Seraphim Sepia with a custom shade medium and brushed that over all of the minis.  You have to take care with this over all shading approach to manage the shade and prevent pooling that will later dry as yellow/brown blobs. Once the shade had dried thoroughly, I used an over all dry brush to lay down some Pro Acryl Ivory highlights. Then I got started on details, starting with the weapons.

At this point, I departed from any sort of formal process and just started picking up all the various details as the mood suited.  One thing that challenged me was neatness.  As I hit up various details, I would occasionally paint outside the lines or catch an armor panel randomly with a brush stroke.  This is a pain with all the layers of color forming the overall bone look of the Deathwing armor. Not only is it tough to paint the ivory over darker 'mistake' colors, I had to restore first the sepia tone, then the ivory dry brushed look. This made each painting mistake a bit of a chore (and time consuming) to fix.

But I stuck with it and soon it was time for my favorite part of any project - Transfers!! I thought at this point that the terminators really came alive with their traditional heraldry. These veterans have not yet achieved the status of Deathwing Knights, and so have not earned the right to display personal heraldry on their tilting shields. So they get the simple Deathwing icon instead.This squad also got veteran skulls on their power fists.  Little details like this not only help tell a story, but make it easier to recall who goes with what squad.  I have 15 terminators in all and I want to be able to keep the squads clear.

At this point it was time to clean up and finish the bases.  My armies get a signature black rim to help the surface of the base and model stand out from whatever surface they are on. Now they were ready for the table, but I still had some fussing to do before I sprayed them with lacquer and called the project done.  Check back later in the week to see the final light box pics. There are purity seals and oaths of moment scrolls to tidy up and detail, among other bits of cleanup. I spent a bit just staring at each model trying to decide what done should look like.  Do you ever get caught here with a project?

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

On the Workbench [February] - Deathwing!

 

Greetings and welcome to another edition of the Workbench.  This month, I've been working on models from the new Deathwing Assault box and updating some older models with some of the new upgrade bits from that box...oh, and a new Terminator Chaplain.  All-in-all this is my Deathwing terminator core - and...other stuff.

So one cool thing about the Deathwing Assault box is early access to bits for the new Terminator scale models that first appeared in the Leviathan launch box. Above is the push-fit captain in terminator armor form that box.

And here it is updated with a new head.  When my terminators go into battle they wear their damn helmets. ;) I know it's a small thing - but he has a nice cape and will read more like a member of Deathwing this way.

Next up, I upgraded the Leviathan box terminator squad. Above is the original push-fit models form the box. Below, it the upgraded squad.

Now with a plasma cannon, chainfist, pointy hand, some various relics, and an upgraded sergeant.  The sergeant received a new sword arm, belt relic, and tilting shield.  Again, small things that hopefully sell the Deathwing motif better in the end. The plasma dude also got a head upgrade to have a fun targeting eye. The pointing arm made the one striding terminator more interesting and the chainfist just makes the squad more useful. Overall, I hope that when painted up these fellas blend in with the new Deathwing terminators - the main difference just being a lack of embossed chapter icons on the right shoulders.

The new Chaplain in terminator armor got some small upgrades too, with an eye to adding more Dark Angels flair.  The chapter icon back banner is an obvious add, along with a Deathwing tilting shield and relic bit on the belt. The BIG upgrade was swapping the extra Deathwing knight shield for the original to make a new Deathwing relic shield.  Some slight modification to the shield, arm and skeleton relic allowed the whole thing to be assembled more or less like the original. I neglected to take a pic of the shield but you can see here that it IS a Deathwing Knight shield and not the original relic shield.

The Deathwing terminators were loads of fun to build.  I built them to be a full squad of ten with a "second in command" that could serve as a "counts as" sergeant if I field them as two squads of five.

 The first demi-squad is pretty straight forward with Sergeant, Missile launcher, and two chain fists.

The second demi-squad fields a sergeant w/chainfist to serve as the counts-as Sergent. he had the upgraded head and a Deathwing tilting shield w/sword as a Lieutenant might, indicating his elevated rank within the squad.  I felt this was better than giving him a sword, but then saying the sword was something else in a game where he was in the ten man squad. Easier to say the stand out model w/the chain fist is holding a "power weapon".  This will become very important during all the games I'm not playing... 😂

I like the new Deathwing Knights a lot.  Very fun and flavorful; easy to build. I never liked the old models and feel they were diminutive even from when they were first launched. These fellas look the part, and stand even with their other terminator armored brethren.

And last, but certainly not least, we come to Belial, Grand Master of the Deathwing. He got a decent upgrade having crossed the Rubicon Primaris and can stand tall amongst his brethren. Scale creep is real, but it IS a much better miniature than anything that has come before. I'm lookign forward to getting some paint on him.

Oh, and there is the Librarian in terminator armor from the Leviathan box set. I didn't make any modifications there.  We'll let the paintwork sell the Dark Angel/Deathwing membership. Taken in all, that's a lot of terminator bodies to fill out the Deathwing in my collection. Thanks to the new book, I have Sternguard Veterans and more Bladeguard to bulk out the first company as well. I'm going to need to paint the six Ravenwing outriders I have as well or risk the Ravenwing getting petulant over all these new bodies in the first company.

And that's more painting projects in the queue for years to come, no doubt.  I really like the updated models and look forward to working on them soon.  For now, I HAVE to finish this Primaris Repulsor and then thing about MonsterMarch, when I was expecting to try out a Leviathan Tyranid beast, probably the Screamer-Killer. It'll be nice to paint an actual monster for MonsterMarch, for once. 😅

I hope your projects are going well.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!