Hulking Peril

Despite the lack of updates, I've actually been pretty productive with painting recently. That said, productive doesn't necessarily indicate that I've completed any projects - most are on the threshold of being finished with horrible little jobs to do before I can tick them off. This will be explained through the miracle of pointless narrative and full colour photography!

In Space, no one can hear you unjamming your stormbolter.

The inspiration for the Deathwing squads was twofold. Firstly, they're great models which have heavy tabletop presence, even if they do only come in three pieces. The background to the Deathwing and Bill King's accompanying story in the sourcebook materials to the original Space Hulk expansion were a big inspiration to me as a pup. This, alongside the numerous Paul Bonner illustrations has always had me hyped on the mythos of these elite Dark Angel troops. Secondly, I really wanted to be able to play Space Hulk again with models that fitted the gaming pieces. Although the modern figures that came with the third edition game are spectacular, they don't really appeal to me as a painter (as of yet anyway) as the lure of the (almost) mono-pose is strong! Please ignore the lack of the Deathwing markings on the shoulder pads and greaves - my printer died before I could print any transfers out, so am currently looking for a new printer so I can finally finish them off.

Heavy flamer on point.

I've had these models knocking around in the bits box for a few years and were all job-lot rescues. Most have some damage to them, be it dents or small gouges, but thankfully I've been able to paint back some of the detail or disguise it as battle damage / weathering. In comparison to the newer terminators, these guys are about 10% smaller but it's still kind of strange to see them on 32mm bases!

Space Hulk kinda sounds like it'd be a sweaty gym in space. 

I've tried to stick as close to the original colour scheme as possible with the addition of the aforementioned weathering as it covers an omniverse of sins. I've a soft spot for painting cream as it's one of those colours you can get really nice transitions with. After a base coat of Bleached Bone / Screaming Skull, they were lightly washed with two coats of a 50/50 mix of Sepia wash and Lamian Medium before any deeper shading was added. From that point they were progressively lightened with Bleached Bone / Screaming Skull mixed with Ulthan Grey and finally with White Scar.

Having a sword will never not be cool.

Sadly I'm missing one of the Sergeants' banner poles so will have to do some hunting to track one of those down. I've cut out the banners from cotton which I've stained dark angels green and will then draw on the classic Deathwing 'smashed up angel' design before painting. There's a lot of folk incorporating natural materials into their miniature work right now (be it hair, wool, textiles) and I'm interested to see how it'll work out with these guys. If it's successful, I can see me re-painting a lot of banners! 

So yeah, the Deathwing are ready to engage on some Space Hulk suicide missions! I've got some left-over bits to make up some close-combat terminators, a Librarian and maybe also a Captain, but we'll see how it goes finishing off these guys first. Could do with resting the beige for a little while! However, to continue to theme of terminators, as a reward for (kinda) finishing off the Deathwing, I dug these old bad lads out of the bits box.

Not the purple enemy you were expecting,..

Ah, the glory of the original traitor terminators! These guys are the raddest. Based on the finalised Jes Goodwin terminator, these evil spacemen are festooned in Chaotic details. Having painted up an awful lot of Emperors Children before, I thought it'd be cool to have these as a nod to their Horus Heresy counterparts.

Traitor terminator Captain armed with the universe's most breakable daemon-weapon.

Surprisingly, there are under ten skulls on this model. For shame GW.

The five man squad was really just an excuse to paint up the Captain and the skull-faced Sergeant figures. The Captain in particular was a much-feared model back in the day, armed as he was with the terrifying daemon-sword. In reality, the daemon -sword is the world's most snappable bit of metal I've ever worked with - had to repair it several times as the fret-work design means that it's barely attached! I quite like how the Chaotic stormbolter is based on the design for the Inquistorial combi-weapon of the same period - obviously this is a heretical opinion and I will be re-educated for such thoughts.

Thankfully, over ten skulls on this guy.

Such a treat to paint this guy in particular. Sometimes, all you need is more skulls. He is technically supposed to be the Sergeant, but he looked too cool with the assault cannon to pass up on. Also, really into the design for the powerfists on the traitor terminators; there's something about juxtaposition between the heavy baroque edging and the protruding horny spike on the wrist that really works! 

How many CPs to Low Rimmer a Genestealer?

Having almost finished this lot off, I'm looking forward to making some more head-way through the pile-o-shame as well as having a go at the new Slaanesh Fiends that came out recently. I've a few old Ork models I'm working on right now too, so as always, plenty to be making a mess of. 

Anew

Almost a year without an update eh? Last year was to put it extremely mildly distracting; four jobs within eight months definitely took the wind from the hobby sails and even though I'd done the odd bit of painting, I didn't feel the urge to share much of it. Thankfully, I'm in a much better place now and have had a few things moved off the hobby shelf which I'm pleased to show off.

Fulgrim was not a kit I took on lightly. Besides being pretty expensive and a challenging sculpt, there was the emotional baggage to contend with. Besides having possibly the most tragic fall in the Horus Heresy narrative, he also reminds me of Sephiroth from FFVII. I never finished FFVII because I was

1 - Not very good at the game

and

2 - Couldn't actually bring myself to kill Sephiroth at the end.

Call me a lamer, but I've a soft spot for antagonists who fall from grace. Don't even get me started on Biblical narratives regarding this! Anyway, the Fulgrim sculpt really reflects the point just before there is no possible redemption for him. I'm aware that many people criticise Simon Egan's handling of the facial sculpt, but I think it works perfectly. A moment of gut-falling inertia as the Laerian blade crosses the rubicon into tragedy.  Anyway, here's some photos.

Fulgrim dance times.

Not sure why the Forgeworld and other painted examples I could find of this model have dead Emperor's Children on the base. I know that this is partially a diorama base for the Istvaan battle, but I'd like to think that Fulgrim would at least like to be captured for posterity not treading on his own dead. So here he is, prancing around the departed remains of Iron Hands.

Tales with spooky swords never end well.

The model itself was fine to paint once it had been cleaned up. I'm not the biggest fan of resin and there was some really fiddly parts of this kit. If I was to tackle this again, I'd be a lot less blasé with the pteruges on the skirt thongs. I understand why they include more than you need as I lost several of them in the carpet!

 

Anguish before eternity.

I feel that a lot of people criticise the 'hair-dryer' mouth a little too harshly. I painted into it as much as possible to reduce the width and I think it's worked okay. I think this may be the first model I've ever painted with sculpted eyebrows too! On fleek Fulgrim!

Could we call this a Ferrus angle?

Really happy with the cloak as I was worried the red and purple would clash awfully. Managed to work out a way of mixing red glaze and mephiston red to make it as vivid as possible too. When I eventually revisit my Blood Angels I'll be utilising that technique a lot!

Now that he's done I'm drawing a close on my Emperor's Children. I'm not really into collecting more models than I need for an army I'll never play with and although I love the Phoenix Terminators and Palatine Blades figures, I can't be doing with more resin models. That is unless they release a pre-heresy sculpt of Fulgrim, in which case, please take my first-born. Oh, and the new Noise Marine totally doesn't count. 

I HAVE A GREAT NEED.

Next up is a visit back into the past. To the deepest roots of the initial contact with the 41st millennium. We're going backward into a time before I'd even set foot in a Games Workshop store, to a time when I cacked my pants in my cousin's darkened bedroom watching him play Space Hulk on the Amiga 1200.