Blood Angels Land Raider Crusader

[Jimmy Carmine]

it was my first day back at work yesterday and brain wasn't functioning properly so I blame that.

Tell me about it, after two weeks of bank holiday joy I got to 2pm yesterday and just shut down.

[Meph]

LOL, post-work-loss-of-brain-functions, I know that too well indeed

Well, I'm guessing the Crusader is roughly 80 complete. lots of small details to finish, such as the lenses and I still need to apply some weathering powders for rust and dust. I'm doubting a bit what king of dirt I'll put on. Either pale sandy stuff that will contrast nicely with the red, or more temperate brown mud. I'm definitely on the fence with that choice...

[Meph]

The first tactical squad almost complete. I'd say it's at roughly 90% finished. I just need to apply some more decals but I'll have to make & print those first. I thought to cook up some righteous mumbo-jumbo for the on the larger pigments and I need some black blood drops for the right shoulder pad as I decided to make them from the 5th company. I'll freehand some stuff on the smaller purity seals and such. And they need some basing done as well.
For the rest I think they turned out quite nicely. I didn't want to go too elaborate on them, both in terms of colours and painting technique. The idea is to have them at a decent table-top quality. The size of the pictures does tend to show the drybrushing a bit harsher than it actually is.
Oh, and I think I'll use some black oil paint to outline the details and panels.

[Meph]

I made some progress on the sarge of the Dev squad, I went with a grey/khaki robe. I wanted to avoid the standard cream coloured ones. Whaddayathink?

I think it came out ok but somehow I'm contemplating to give it some washes and glazes to give more depth.

[Fantasticmrfox]

Nice. The grey goes very very well with the red - I think after seeing this I may be never be painting a bone/cream robe with red armour ever again.

[Meph]

Cheers mate! Yeah, I was kinda surprised myself of the result. I think I'm going to leave it as-as and forgo the glazes and wash.

[Meph]

And in the mean time, I thought it was time to get ahead (badum-tsh!) and start painting the devastator heads. Right now they're looking a bit spacewolfish but I intend to give them quite a few glazes/washed with thinned blues & blacks to give them a good full dark blue tint. I want them really dark so the blue doesn't clash too hard with the red. (I still want to slap the guys who came up with the blue helmets in the first place)
The guy with the masking tape collar is the unlucky fellow who got his head glued into place before I realised it had to be a Devastator. The tape will make my life a lot easier when applying the glazes and inks.

And as a last pic, meet the crew for the Land speeder Squadron that's in the pipeline. One Land Speeder is the first plastic type, sitting in a red base coat since a decade, and then I've got two of the latest kits; one already full magnetized for all weapon options and undercoated, and one is almost assembled but still needs to be magnetized.

[Meph]

I did some more work on the helmets this afternoon. I drybrushed the helmets with some pure Skull White and then I gave the devastators three washes/glazes with blue ink, with a little bit of black and thinned by some water, about 2:1. The yellow ones received a white drybrush as well and then two washes with sepia ink, with a little bit of devlan mud, and water.

The camera does show the drybrush in a rather harsh fashion, but then it's also some ridiculously close close-ups of a tiny bit. The effect does look a lot softer on the model and the blue appears much deeper as well. When the lighting conditions are a bit better I'll take some more pics. It's a bit too sunny atm for good model photgraphy.

[chrispcarter]

Looking good mate, I envy you your commitment to batch painting, I always get bored and end up doing 2 or 3 models at a time!

How are these coming along?

[Meph]

Well, the best way to paint in batches is to just find the good c d or playlist that blurs out time & space. ^^ Recently I've also been enjoying some good 40k audio books. Perfect excuse to both invest the effort to actually take the time to listen to a decent length audio book, as well as investing the time in painting. win-win

Progress has been a bit slow lately as I was away on a small holiday. I'm planning to pick up the pace this week though.