Rob451

Progress on my Vow so far.

Today is a historic moment. I've finally finished assembling infantry! No pictures right now but the final count looks like this: HQs 1x Watch Captain Artemis 1x Terminator Watch Captain w/Relic Blade 1x Watch Captain w/Xenophase Blade (Krom Dragongaze conversion) 1x Terminator Librarian w/Force Axe 3x Librarians (2 Kit bash 1 from Overkill) 1x Chaplain Cassius (Overkill) Troops 10x Bolter Veteran (3 Overkill) 5x Combi-Melta Veteran (1 Overkill) 5x Stalker Veteran 4x Shotgun Veteran 1x Blackshield w/Bolter & Power Sword 3x Frag Cannon (1 Overkill) 2x Infernus Heavy Bolter Elites 1x Venerable Dreadnought (All options magnetised) 1x Terminator w/Thunder Hammer & SS 1x Terminator w/Dual Lightning Claws 1x Terminator w/Assault Cannon & PFist 1x Terminator w/Assault Cannon & ChainFist 1x Terminator w/Storm Bolter, PFist & CML 1x Terminator w/Heavy Flamer, PFist & Aux Melta Gun 1x Vanguard w/Grav Pistol & Power Maul 2x Vanguard w/Power Maul & SS 2x Vanguard w/Heavy Thunder Hammer 1x Vanguard w/Chainsword & Hand Flamer (Overkill) 1x Vanguard w/Dual Lightning Claws (Overkill) Fast Attack 2x Biker w/Power Weapon (1 Overkill, 1 Dark Vengeance) 1x Biker w/Teleport Homer 55 models covering everything I will ever realistically field in a game. It's 13 less models than my Space Wolves, 25(ish) less models than my Orks and is about 1000 more points than either of those armies. The only Army I have that doesn't outnumber them in Infantry is my Guard and that's only because it's an Armoured Company.

40k isn't a balanced game by any stretch when played in a tournament style which is why I don't play pick-up games or tournaments anymore and stick to narrative campaigns with games masters. In this scenario Deathwatch shine because you can tailor a kill team to the scenario. However with regard to game one: Skilled Rider means your kill team automatically pass dangerous terrain tests so your biker shouldn't have died.

Got started on a Dreadnought today.

I've been using an airbrush for about 4 years now however base coating and zenithal highlighting is one of the easiest techniques to pick up for a beginner and incredibly useful for speed painting Space Marines.

It's a little more complicated than that... All done with an airbrush unless otherwise stated. Prime black. Base coat of VMA US Flat Brown. Zenithal highlight (around 45 degrees) with a mix of white and Reikland Fleshshade (it's a very light pink). Zenithal highlight (about 30 degrees) with pure white. Carefully apply a wash of Reikland Fleshshade with a brush making sure it doesn't pool too much on baldies. Once The wash is completely dry Zenithal highlight from directly above with very thin white. Lastly thin some Reikland Fleshshade with Lahmian Medium to make a glaze and apply over the entire head with a soft brush to tint the skin back to a subtle flesh colour.

Started batch painting some heads today. Got all the heads for my Vow plus some extras. The one on the far right will be Artemis' new head.

I have super bad depth perception which makes painting small details really hard. Most of the time I rely on using the edge of the brush rather than the tip and the fact that most GW models have really well defined edges but when it comes to faces I'll often end up miss-judging how close the tip of my brush is to the surface and... SPLOTCH! There goes my paint job.

Well this was bound to happen eventually... I broke my own rule about never gluing heads to models when I built Captain Artemis and glued him together even though his head was molded to part of his body and would therefore be a nightmare to paint (those high collars don't help). After several attempts to try and paint his face to a point I was satisfied with I got so frustrated that he got pitched into a jar full of Biostrip 20, cleaned of all paint and relieved of his head via some clippers and a suitably large drill bit. I've found a replacement from the Veterans sprue which looks almost exactly like him except for one ear and the lack of cybernetics on his forehead. It only took me a couple of hours to get him to the point he was last at in pictures so I've not lost too much work but I'd much rather be able to paint his head separately as this way I can mess up and strip it as often as required (I do this a lot with heads). Let this be a lesson to you: Never glue your heads to your models before painting them even if the head is attached to some other part of the model.

I did it with an airbrush but you can do it just as easily with glazes it just takes a lot longer.

It's mostly airbrushed with some additional highlights glazed on. It's still quite shiny though hence the weird highlights. It'll look different when the final varnish coat goes on. I do everything over black and just built up thin layers of VMA Scarlet. If it needs to pop a bit more I use a couple of thin highlights of VMA Orange.

Been working on Artemis. Was going to use the scheme from the concept art but while that looks fine with NMM and controlled lighting it's way too much gold on one area so went with something closer to the eavy metal scheme.

Base with Retributor armour. Thin some Golden Griffon (yes it's a dry paint but you can still thin it) with Lahmian medium until you get it to a layer consistency (best to do this in a spare pot so you can stir it with a cocktail stick or similar to break up the pigment clumps). Highlight with the thinned Golden Griffon. Edge highlight with VMA Chrome. Sepia wash. While it sounds relatively simple there is alot of going back and touching up areas with Retributor Armour to bring back the deeper gold colour where appropriate and to cover up the many mistakes I'll have made along the way. I'm not sure how much this will affect the gold but I also use a Black oil paint wash at the end to increase definition along panel lines (you can see it best around his neck). In theory it shouldn't affect the actual gold tone though.

Watch Captain complete (base pending). In the background you can just make out Artemis and a pair of Terminators for my Vow. I've started edge highlighting on them and the silver arms are all complete for the entire Vow. Only problem I have is that while assembling the rest of my forces the models for the Vow all got pulled apart and reassembled as 4x Shotguns and a Frag Cannon (except the Stalker guy who is the same). This means technically my Vow as written cannot be completed but I'm confident I will exceed the original Vow as it is.