On The Bench: Dreadnoughts Done

The Dreadnoughts are done with 5 day and 8 hours to finish the Razorback and Vind. There are a great deal of things that I would like to do like a display board. There are so ideas running around in my head but not sure I have time.

On The Bench: Dreadnoughts

I have run into painters block in working on my dreadnoughts. All three dreadnoughts for the 2,000 point list are sitting on my bench staring at me. The main issue is how to tie in the armies red accents into the scheme. I have some ideas on weathering, but with 8 days left before the GT, I don't have a great deal of time to work out a plan.

The lesson here is; back when I was doing my paint tests, I should have painted a dread to make sure the paint scheme worked for all the models in my army. That way I would not being trying to figure out how these units would be painted under a time crunch.

I am sure they will be fine. It is just going to take longer to get motivated than if I knew exactly how they were going to look. That is the way my brain works, once I have an image in my head getting the model done is quick.

On The Bench: Getting ready for WAR Con GT

I forgot how much work getting ready for a GT is. As you can see from my bench things are coming along and very busy. Everything is yellow that needs to be yellow. The Drop Pod, vindicator, marines and razorback are ready for ink and weathering. The Dreads need a ton of work, they are the new worry now that the Drop Pod is coming along. The dozer blades are ready for paint. These are temporary until FW one come in. I don't want the worry of not having them in hand hanging over me.

Looking at the painting scoring system for WAR Con, it looks like I will get 24/30 points. Not bad, I may enter the Master of the Arsenal into the painting contest as my fist entry ever. I don't expect to win anything! He is good for me but there are so many talented painters in the single mini group, he won't even stand out.

All and all though I am happy with my speed painted Imperial Fists army. 2,000 point of Imperial Fists, 46 figures and 11 vehicles in 11 months. That is 2 figures a week plus a vehicle every month. That is with building an Eldar army and a 10th company army to test play. I have a full time job, I have not gotten divorced and my son still knows who I am... not bad.

On the Bench: Taking a break from projects

The last couple of weeks have been very productive. So tonight I took a break from yellow and painted something different. This is an old preacher with eviscerator that I am using in my Inquisitor squad (it is an on hold project). The process I use to paint one-offs is so much different than painting armies. Plus I needed to work on my brush control. He is still a work in progress but I can say my blending isn't totally lost.

Not total sure about the color combo, but we'll see if it grows on me. There are still details to paint in, like trim around the robe and another highlight on the weapon. I may paint another character before going back to the fists.

On the Bench: Up and running

Airbrush got setup up this week and I started in on my Sgt, heavies and specials. Tactical squad 1 and 2 are both going to have Lascannon and flamer so they can break into a AT fire team and assault team. There was a couple of big game this weekend and I wanted to get a least 3 colors on 750 points so that the Imperial Fists could play if needed. I ended up playing the Apocalypse 40,000 megabattle with my IG instead but it was good motivation to get the airbrush are put together.

Speaking of the airbrush. Wow did it need a cleaning. There is this place where the color cup meets the expansion chamber that I have to watch. It is hard to reach without doing a full break down of the brush and it tends to be the spot where paint collect and dries. I thought my mix was off then I was base coating these guys. It was coming out very thin. So I thickened my mix, wrong answer. That was a disaster, the brush stopped shooting paint at all. Turns out it was a dirty brush. I like I said a while a go, the first thing to do when you have a problem is break the brush down and clean it.

3rd Battle company is coming along here is the current progress:

Complete Battle Company (3rd) of Imperial Fists

• Planning - Done
• Buying - Still 90%, 1 Rhino, a couple of assault marines and HQ models left
• Assembly - 70% up from 45%a week and a half ago
  
• Painting - 35% up from 30%, 2/6 Tactical Squads in done 80% done, 1/2 assault squads 80% done and 0/2 devastators and no HQ yet.
  

That is what is on the Bench this week. See you next time.

On The Bench: New work area

We’re in the new house and things are getting back to normal. So it is time to set up the work area and start painting again. I thought I would write up my thoughts on setting up my new bench to get back into the blogging habit.

Here is the new work area. The airbrush setup will need to move to the garage. I will be setting that area up in a couple of weeks once the house is unpacked. As you can see I have a smaller area but lots of storage. So far it is working well. With the area being more central to the rest of the house I can paint and be around the family. The old painting area was in the dungeon area of the house and so far away as to be out of reach if I was needed.

So first up on the bench is finishing off the Space Marine assault squad. I am done with the ink wash and will weather them tonight. Once I get the airbrush set back up I will start on tactical squads again. I have a set of sergeants for each squad (one with bolt pistol and chain sword and one with bolt pistol and power fist). This way I can change out weapon load outs as needed for adjusting points. My 500, 1000, 1500 and 1850 lists are stabilizing (more about that later) and I need to complete all of those models.

I am starting to line up projects again. Here is what I have on the horizon:

Complete Battle Company (3rd) of Imperial Fists

• Planning - Done
• Buying - 90%, 1 Rhino, a couple of assault marines and HQ models left
• Assembly - ~45%
  
• Painting - 30%, 2-3/6 Tactical Squads in process, 1/2 assault squads and 0/2 devastators

Build an Imperial Fist 10th Company Army of Scouts and Bikes

• Planning - Theme/Paint Scheme done, working on army list
  
• Buying - ~60%, 2 squads of scouts and most of the bikes
• Assembly - 0%
• Painting - 0%

Eldar Army

• Planning - Vague idea of what type of army I want to play, not paint scheme yet
• Buying - ~20%, Battle Force, Fire Prism and Warp Spider, Ranger and Farseer boxes
• Assembly - 0%
• Painting - 0%

Magnetized Imperial Guard Shadowsword / Stormlord

• Planning - Researching
  
• Buying - 100% being shipped now
  
• Assembly - 0%
• Painting - 0%

On the Bench

On the bench this week is the jump chaplain and assault squad. I am using a eight-man squad to keep the point cost down. This way I can keep the power fist and plasma pistol on the sergeant. The squad is getting the normal airbrush and weathering. The chaplain was a old model that got some conversion to bring him up to date. The jump packs are magnetized so that everyone can pile in a Rhino. It looks like this will be my command squad for a while.


In assembly is the Assault Terminator squad. They have magnetized arms and Forge World shoulder pads. I played them in a game over the weekend and I am thinking they will get shelved until their Land Raider is done. Right now my army is very mobile and I am having trouble getting them into the fight in the right spot with deep strike.


I need to put some more sergeants into assembly and start paint on the heavy weapons marines. Go, go, yellow marines. Latter.

On the Bench

I am in full assembly line mode with Imperial Fist Space Marines. The blog is way behind due to getting focused on painting. There are a large number of Space Marines that are in process. I have complete 15 marines that are table ready and 17 that are still on the sprue waiting on me to decided what they will become.

On the Workbench:
20 Space Marines w/ Bolters
7 Space Marines w/ Heavy Weapons

• 2 Heavy Bolters
• 2 Lascannons
• 2 Plasma Cannons
• 1 Missile Launcher

1 Space Marines w/ swappable magnetized Special weapons

• 4 meltaguns
• 4 Flamer
• 3 Plasmaguns
• 3 Bolters

2 Sergeant w/ Plasma Pistol and Close Combat Weapon
2 Sergeant w/ Bolt Pistol and Power Fist

Tanks are moving along as well with 1 Rhino done, 2 Rhinos and 2 Vindicators waiting on weathering and painting of additional details. There is also an 8-man assault squad, a chaplain in Terminator armor and a chaplain in power armor that is being converted have a swappable jump-pack. So the workbench is full.

ToDo's:

1. Write Magnetizing Special Weapons Tutorial
2. Write Using Wreathing Powders on Space Marines Tutorial
3. The 'Wow, I suck' Battle Report