Yes, I got my new codex over this weekend. There is stuff I like, stuff I am disappointed about being only a rumour and some stuff which IS in there which I'm not that impressed with. That is for a later blog entry!
At the start of the week I airbrushed the wash on to this Ravenwing squadron. On that subject, I had a question from evil_bryan who asked:
"Hey Chris, do you find you need to be aggressive using the wash through the airbrush? I had airbrushed wash over several terrain kits at the club, and found my best effect came from applying quite a bit."
Well Bryan, since I thinned the wash 50% I did find that I had to be a tad aggressive, but since it's a black wash over black paint I suppose I got what I wanted by happy accident. But oh yeah, I drowned em with the airbrush. It's the only time that I've used a wash through an airbrush, but I imagine I will be doing it again when I get around to painting some Guard vehicles.
FYI, I put the models on a spatter shield for a frying pan (you can get them at the dollar store), and put the spatter shield over a foil pie dish. That let the excess wash run off and away and helped mitigate tide marks at points where the washed model is touching the surface it's resting on.
So that was Monday night, and they were dry by Tuesday. Then the Sargent's robes took me two evenings to get done. They say that work is the curse of the drinking class. It also appears to be the curse of the hobbyist because I was too tired to paint much.
The Sargent was just never glued together and I took it as an opportunity to get it glued to the bike more easily as the robes are a bit of stretch when putting them onto the saddle. When I glued the legs together I deliberately left a gap which I filled, in order the make it easier for me to get him into the saddle after painting was done. So I'll push the legs into place when he's done and place the right hand on on the handlebar. Then I will apply some glue to the area of contact between torso and legs and that should do it.
The robe was basecoated in Graveyard Earth then Deneb Stone. Then a wash of Graveyward Earth and Kommando Khaki was applied. Then a drybrush of Deneb Stone and Kommando Khaki was applied. The folds look darker than that up close. The inside was Dark Angels Green up to Snot Green. It'll do for me! :)
This will most likely be my unit commitment for next month since I had a hobby ADD moment. Instead of painting bikers I started building the Chaplain Dreadnought. It will have a plasma cannon and an optional right handed CCW. It's a pity Forge World don't make a heavy flamer to go under the body instead of a storm bolter, I would have chosen that instead. I like the idea of a dual clawed Chaplain Dreadnought jumping out of its drop pod, blasting the neighbours with a heavy flamer then performing some righteous topiary on the charred remains.
The base is one that I picked up from Mr Dandy at Adepticon.
My only real frustration with this model is that the arms hang quite loosely on the... pegs, for want of a better word - and fall off immediately. I will have to look at some way of tightening the joints for a friction fit. My green dreadnoughts all have magnetised arms for the various Mortis Pattern weapons since the Black Reach dreadnoughts were made with different sized pins. I may also magnetise these arms. A shame really, since magnets don't always allow the weapon arm to remain in the desired position - they sometimes let the arm rotate to find the its centre of gravity and then it looks like it is hanging slack.
I reached my goal for this weekend which was to basecoat the "white bits" on this Ravenwing squadron. I used P3's Frost Bite as a base. Its a Space Wolf Grey variant which goes on over black nicely enough for what I need.
My next goal for this week is to wash all of these areas with Asurmen Blue then highlight with P3 Menoth White Highlight, which isn't as stark as Skull White used to be. After that I'd like to get the bike saddles and the spot details done before I start the edge highlights. If I keep to schedule I'll have these based and my challenge commitment met by the end of the month.
