Sons of Sanguinius (bank holiday special)

Today is an update on my Blood Angels project, where I try to create a 90s feel, with some classic models and goblin green bases.


I'm really pleased to have finished another model that I've coveted for a long time. I painted this Blood Angels Captain almost exactly as shown on the cover of the second edition box set, exchanging yellow for gold to keep him up to date. I also ignored the black flames as I consider them a bit dated now. I think my highlighting has improved a bit, and I even got some nice white reflctions across the power fist and right arm.

I finished a command squad too, and this features a few unique models - the company champion is based on a metal chaplain and the marine next to the apothecary is based on a death company model. As with all the mainline troops, these are finished with goblin green, flocked bases, although these are 32mm bases, just because they look cooler. I'm mixing my retro and modern aesthetics here... hehe

The rhino is a classic rhino with modern Forge World doors. The paint is not perfectly smooth because I had to strip it and stripping sometimes leaves you with an uneven surface, either because some paint won't come off or because you scratch the surface while scrubbing it. Despite this, I think it looks very nice and perfectly in keeping with the rest of the army. This project was never intended to be super high quality anyway. If that sounds odd, just note that I paint a lot of models and I don't paint every single one to the best of my ability. I divide my time up so that models I love get more attention than, in this case, a roughly stripped old rhino that will transport some quickly painted OOP space marines!

The army is nearly finished now. Just a dreadnought and another squad of tactical marines to paint and... I will assemble them for a group shot. I was going to say 'and they'll be finished,' but we all know that would be a lie... *wink*

The very first Minotaur

For years I have wanted an army of golden space marines, and now I have started the journey towards fulfilling that dream! The bronze armour was experimental, but worked out well. The base is retributor armour, then many layers of vallejo bronze, followed by zenithal highlights of vall. bronze mixed with gehenna's gold, then runefang steel edge highlights. I'm really satisfied with it! This will be the first army where I paint every model individually to my highest standards, rather than painting in batches and aiming to paint quickly. That will mean it takes time, but given the army is a low model count, it should be a reasonable trade-off between time and results. 

(Yes, there are a couple of errors here but I have spotted them and will be tidying them up!)

Winged Lord

This Lord of Khorne was created in a rather whimsical moment as I looked through my bitz box and realised I had some parts that would go rather neatly together to make an impressive model. Parts from the wrathmonger kit, the skullcrusher kit and the possessed kit went together to make this hulking gladiator of Khorne. He is a member of the Black Legion, named Nemurak, and he leads lightning raids on enemy fortifications to eliminate their leaders.

Bloodletters

You know what? I can't believe that someone as obsessed with Khorne has as few bloodletters as I have! Until today, I had eight OOP metal bloodlettters and eight modern ones. That's not a lot. So today helps rectify that situation. I finished another squad of eight this week. I'll probably run them as a squad of 16 (the modern ones, that is). I find it slightly annoying that the rules say a minimum squad of ten, when eight is the favoured number of Khorne. Sixteen will have to do, I guess! Here are the new ones:

Bloodletters are pretty easy to paint. I did these in an afternoon, and so if you are a beginner looking for an easy start to your painting hobby, I can recommend the Khorne daemons. Both these and flesh hounds can be painted in the same way - with a lot of drybrushing - and so provide an easier way to build an army, compared to say, Aeldari or Chaos Space Marines.

I occasionally have painted miniatures for sale, so if you are looking for some nicely painted miniatures, check out my ebay store at: https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/blood_miniatures/

The face of Death

I'm pleased to say I have finally finished this amazing model... C'Tan Shard of the Nightbringer. I love this model so much! Ever since I played necrons in Dawn of War and this ghostly shape would glide over the battlefield, sowing death, I have always wanted to have one!

The weapon is slightly changed since I snapped the original and couldn't put it back together neatly. So I bought a bit from an AoS model - one of the Nigthhaunt ones, I think and made a neat little conversion. The purple blade fits in nicely with the green and grey model. 

I hope you like it!

Master and Commander

Today I post two more Space Marine Captains, to add to my growing collection! Both are old metal models that I acquired recently, and both are models I've lusted after for a while. They hold a special place in my heart as models I coveted as a young hobbyist, so it's great to finally get hold of them after all this time.

The first is Captain Darnath Lysander of the Imperial Fists, resplendent in his yellow terminator armour.

The second is the limited edition Space Marine Captain model, most commonly depicted as a Black Templar, which is how I have painted him. I have converted him to have a power fist instead of a firearm, which gives him an interesting look, I think. I was a bit nervous about doing the white shoulder pad, but I was careful and did nice gradations of grey to white that I think look quite striking. 

Gone Rogue

Hey folks! This week I did quite a bit of painting, and since they were all of a theme, I thought I'd post them together. I think I mentioned that I have a load of OOP marines sitting around in a box, and I started turning a lot of them into Blood Angels. Since a lot of them have paint on them already and they're not really worth stripping, I decided to paint them quite quickly and to a basic standard rather than spend hours trying to make a slightly 'blobular' marine look good!

So this week I decided to make a bit of progress on these, and managed to paint ten as Blood Angels and five as Black Templars. I chose Black Templars for the extra five since I already had a marine painted up by someone else as a Black Templar. This model was on a slightly larger base, and is a modern style marine, one of the other marines was a slightly blobular modern marine with two bolt pistols (again, not my modelling work), so I just went for a quick Black Templars job. Remember, the idea behind doing all these is really just to do something with all these old models, and probably use them in Apocalypse games. 

I also painted up the metal Death Company models, which, were actually unpainted when I got them, so I did a slightly better job with those than I did with all the other plastic marines. Death Company are quite fun to paint, I discovered! The mainly black armour with red and gold details is a bit like Black Legion, but without all the fiddly armour trim!

The final model was a very old Rogue Trader model. This fellow had been sittingin my bitz box for ages, until I saw him today and decided he would work within my Blood Angels force. I didn't know what the model was meant to be, but luckily, the very helpful Campbell McLaughlin found an image online that shows it is meant to be 'Brother Matthews', a marine with a power sword. Thanks, Campbell!

 

I gave him a plasma pistol and painted him up as a Blood Angel Captain. Martin said he looked a bit like Santa Claus, so this fellow is now named 'Santus'.

Here's everything together:

 The Blood Angel Tactical Squad with Santus:

The Death Company Squad:

and the Black Templars Crusader Squad:

Thanks for reading!