Hobby update - High Elves and Templars

"Artists Paint Brushes adapted with Photoshop" by Si Griffiths.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update on what has been on my workbench (ahem, "Kitchen Table") this month.

High Elf Ellyrion Reavers. (50% done)

Ellyrion Reaver

Ellyrion Reaver Champion

I've been continuing to beef up my High Elves, and thought a good project would be to knock out x10 Ellyrion Reavers. I thought they would be quick - what a mistake! For some reason these are taking ages! They are just very, very detailed, and quite challenging to paint once assembled (I received them this way).

I've got most of the basecoats down, so should be able to start on washes and highlights this week.

Mounted High Elf Prince/ Noble (30% done)

High Elf Noble (mounted)

As I have 8 Silver Helms painted up, I thought I should tackle this guy as he will add a fair amount of hitting power, and bring the unit up to nine (apparently taking them in a 3 x 3 formation works quite well.) Not sure if I will add a banner to him yet.

Black Templar Space Marines page update.

Noting that I hadn't updated the page for a while, I added pictures of the Stormtalon (I'd had the vehicle painted for a while, but stalled on the base until last week) and also two Whirlwinds I painted up a while ago. I think the page is up to date now.

Hopefully I'll have the High Elves done this week.

Cheers,

Black Templars Armoured column

x2 Land Raider Crusaders, x2 Whirlwinds, x2 Predators, x4 Speeders and 2 Drop Pods.

Finally finished up some reinforcements for my Black Templars today, by completing some last weathering effects. Until yesterday, they had a light drybrushing of Calthan Brown to add some dust and dirt, but to match my other units, I decided to go all in with some heavier mud effects.

These followed the same technique I used elsewhere, (thank you for the excellent video MarneusAugustaCalgar) combining modelling sand and Calthan Brown with GW 'Ard Stuff (gloss varnish) to make a wet-look heavy mud. This was then painted (perhaps "applied" would be a better word!) onto the edges of tracks and armour. For some final variation to the mud, I did the same thing but with more Abaddon Black added. This breaks up the colours and (I think!) makes for a better overall effect.

Finally, I went with some light rust effects on some key areas. I actually am not happy with how these turned out. The blend of brown and orange I used is too light, making the effect too obvious. I might go back later and streak in some darker brown to break it up a bit.

Here are the vehicles now.

Based on feedback I received on my first Land Raider (the mud was too heavy on the tracks themselves, and it would principally be on the skirts of the vehicle) I went for much less on the tracks this time. Overall, I think it looks better.

With the two Whirlwind Missile launchers and the second Land Raider finished, I can move onto the last outstanding model for the Black Templars that I have, a Storm Talon flyer. 

Glad these three vehicles are finished!

Cheers,

Black Templars Heavy Support painting Update

++Unit Update++

After bringing back a haul of new Heavy Support units from a recent trip to the UK, I started work on them a couple of weeks ago, and have made some progress on bringing them to a standard ready for the table top.

These aren't quite finished, but I realized that I haven't posted an update here in a while - instead throwing updates onto Google+ into some of the great communities there. (Highly recommended are Miniature Painting and Modeling, Warhammer 40K, and Miniature Addiction.)

Below you will find photos of my second Landraider Crusader, and two Rhino chassis, kitted out as Whirlwind Missile Launchers (although I have not glued the turret into place, as I also have plans to make them interchangeable with Predator tank turrets or other units).

Off we go!

Land Raider Crusader (Invigilus).

Here is the LRC as I received it from my eBay purchase. I always try to stay patient, and bid for an item that has been undercoated black (which is obviously the main colour for Black Templars, saving me time), but which requires little in the way of "rescue" (finding missing parts etc.)

This LRC is a good example. Nicely undercoated, parts in place (it came with the turret gunner), and in this case, some nice clean initial work in white.

Here it is now. 

I also spent some time working on the turret gunner:

I still have work to do on some of the details (headlamps) and more weathering (another layer of drybrushed mud, followed by some "wet" mud on flaps etc.) but I'm quite happy with how it looks at the moment. 
Once fully complete, "Invigilus" should be a good battlefield companion for my other LRC, "Potestas" 

Whirlwind Missile Launchers (Extremis and Infernus)

These two chassis arrived some time ago (before the latest haul) in a similar condition to the Landraider, but one of them had a very nicely weathered launcher unit.

Here is how they look today:

Infernum...

Extremis:

With both of these models, I really enjoyed working on the glass/ viewing ports, and I think they came out looking quite nice! (although they look a little too clean compared to the rest of the model - does anyone have a tutorial on painting a "cracked window" effect?).

I can also see myself proxying Extremis as a "Hunter" missile launcher for anti-air (although it seems as though most people would rather use fliers or Aegis gun emplacements for effective anti-air...)

I haven't started work on the Stormtalon yet, but that will have to wait until the final details on the models above are finished.

In the meantime, all C&C welcome!

Cheers.

Riding the Wind.

Master Technician Adolphus Hume kept his eyes squeezed shut while he chanted the sacred litany.

Decades of practice gave an almost preternatural speed in his incantations. Like his brethren, he had mastered the words of the litany and their meaning decades ago, a feat that had itself taken decades of earlier work under the watchful eyes of the chapter's senior technical staff (how he had hated Master Scribe Fleer in those days!). Unlike his brethren safely working in the sheltering gloom of the hangars of the Grand Crusade in orbit however, he now found himself in the unenviable position of having to bring an honored vehicle to life from a critically-damaged state, and with their enemy just over the horizon.

Acutely sensitive to all things mechanical, Adolphus felt the signal microseconds before it was emitted as an audible warning from the servitor-mounted vox standing just behind him. It took but a split second more to realize that this signal could only be triggered by an unidentified contact approaching at high velocity. 

++TARGET IDENTIFIED:AIR++RANGE: 155.85++TIME TO TARGET:00:29:56++

With a thought, he slaved the servitor's sensors to his own optical display and simultaneously silenced the living automaton's vocal unit, the better to focus on the job at hand. There could be no interrupting the litany if he was to succeed.

As far as he knew, there were now no operating Imperial guard or chapter air assets operating in this sector to give them cover. Despite putting up fierce resistance, they had been overwhelmed in a matter of days. What remnants there were had been pulled-back to protect cities or manufactorums of worth, while smaller ground-based units - like the one he was attached to - had been left to slow the enemy (or abandoned, depending on your point of view).
To make matters worse, he now remembered the subject of his litanies was a Whirlwind, rather than a pattern designed to engage air threats, such as a Hunter or Stalker.

++RANGE: 09.10++TIME TO TARGET:00:14:45++

Despite knowing the servitor had no real capacity for thought of it's own, Adolphus couldn't help but be impressed by the lack of emotion in the voice in his head when they were both but a mere 14 seconds from obliteration. However, knowing that the machine-spirit would be less likely to respond to his requests if adulterated with impure thoughts or such petty considerations as his own mortality, Adolphus swept such thoughts to a section of his cybernetically-enhanced brain that the machine should have no wish to enter...

...and, as if in agreement, there it was! 
A light, trembling hum ran through his fingertips and palm. 
Slight...
...but yes it was there...but Praise the Emperor, so weak!

++TIME TO TARGET:00:10:02++

Eyes pressed closed, sweat dripping, Adolphus slid his finger under the groove of the access panel through which he had felt that slight spark of life and flipped it up. As though guided by the Adeptus Mechanicus themselves, his fingers rapidly tapped out the sequence his brain struggled to pull in front of his eyes.

-Payload=ALL, MinRange locks=OFF, Seeker spread=MAX, 

LET FLY-

++TIME TO TARGET:00:05:06++

Servo-motors whined as the optics and targeting ring whirled to face into the distance, their banks of red optics lit from within, and the massive arms containing the twin pods snapped skywards, 

++TIME TO TARGET:00:03:05++

and then everything, 

all thoughts

all fears

all hopes - were shredded and ripped away as multiple missile engines exploded into life. Intrigued, Adolphus subconsciously activated his embedded ocular filters before opening his right eye but a fraction. Through the dust and grit in the air (Whirlwind was surely an appropriate name) he caught the first slender form streak away, almost faster than he could follow, then only moments later all ten others were gone, leaving only empty smoking tubes.

Choking on the acrid smell of ignited fuel, he looked up at the evening sky. Already the rockets were but pinpricks of light - lethal stars - on their way to the heavens, seeking their prey like lethal, supersonic serpan...

...a blast unlike anything he had known before blew him and the servitor off their feet and directly into the huddled troops behind, searing the image from his mind in a white flash.

Spurred on by the curses of those he had landed on, he struggled to his feet. 

Forcing his eyes to focus in the direction the flash had come from, so close had the enemy flyer come that he didn't even need to summon ocular magnification to see the impressive white and black cloud of destruction that was all that remained of the foe. Just a few microseconds more and the flyer would have released whatever unholy payload it had carried directly upon them.

"Praise the Emperor!" 
The cry erupted around him. He felt himself being patted and touched by those troopers who could still rise to their feet. 

Exhausted despite his euphoria, Adolphus leaned over against the cold metal of the Whirlwind missile launcher. He gently reached out, resting his fingers against the panel through which he had launched the barrage.

Nothing.

The machine was silent - no hum of life remained. Straining against his exhaustion, he lifted his head. The targeting ring optics too were lifeless, no glint or inner hint of life remained. 

Head lowered, Master Technician fell slowly to his knees, folded his arms, and began the Chant of the Fallen.

+++

The Whirlwind is one of my favorite space marine vehicles. I've decided to give painting infantry a break and head back to vehicles, and I have two Rhino/ Whirlwind chassis that I can work at. As my occasional opponents here are very casual, I don't think any of them would mind if I did proxy a Whirlwind as a Hunter or Stalker. These two models therefore add lots of variety to my Black Templars army.

Here is how they look now. 

Note the Black Templars door.

The red missile launcher housing came in this state from eBay and already looks heavily weathered. In keeping with the weathering I have been doing on other vehicles, I am tempted to keep that look and run with a similar design on the second tank. 

I'll post more updates as I go along.

Cheers,