Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Display Board for the Dark Angels

My Christmas project was to build and paint a display board from my LVO Dark Angels army.


I started with a wooden serving tray purchased at the local grocery store. I spray painted the outer edges black and then finished it off with a gloss protective coat.


Next I took a single Realm of Battle board section (purchased from Red Claw here in Edmonton...thanks for breaking up a full box of these boards, Leanne!). I measured out a section of the board that would fit inside the tray, and then cut out that section with a hand saw. I sanded down the edges, and had a display board ready to go. I painted it (the longest part of this process, obviously) and weathered it with a variety of acrylic products.


I slipped the board into the tray, and...well...there it is.


My 100 PL army fits in perfectly. And it's ready to go.


'Til next time.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Weathering the Repulsor...and Another Dreadnaught

Well...that was a long project!

I've been working on the Primaris Repulsor for the last few months...bit by bit. In fact, I've played it in a number of games, starting from when it was in black primer, and most recently before the guns and details were finished off. Regardless, it rolled off the hobby table today for the last time.


In this blog post, I want to go over the steps I went through to weather the vehicle. Looking back, I should have taken photos while I was doing the digital urban camo with the great stencil set from Anarchy Games. Next time. Anyway, I'm picking this up after assembly was 90% complete and five layers of the camo paint scheme were laid down.

The concept here was to have the Dark Angels repaint a Primaris Repulsor for an urban combat detail. As such, I first sprayed down the metallic green, and then masked over the areas where the major insignia would be left exposed on the vehicle. Next, the four layers of urban camo colours were sprayed down with the aid of stencils.


So, the first step in the weathering process was to coat the tank with a gloss finish. I used Testors Glosscoat.


Next, I applied all the decals. These came from a variety of sheets. Markings are for 3rd Company, Dark Angels Chapter.


Next, I wanted to give some Migs enamel products a try. I've never used them before, and it's been decades since I used enamel paint. Anyway, I wanted to use them for the pin washes and streaks, and use enamel thinner to see if it's better than acrylics and water.


And the verdict? I liked them. Easy to use, quick to apply, and a great general effect. This shading and streaking layer formed the foundation for everything than followed.


Next I mixed some Migs weathering powders with enamel thinner and went to town adding in rust and a base dirt layer. I also did some work on the metal repulsor "tracks" at this point.


The painted "tracks" were put on at this point, along with a generous application of dust and dirt pigments over the tank body.


I switched to Vallejo acrylic weathering effects at this point, and splattered on a number of mud shades.


Then it was time to paint the gun barrels, lenses, lights, and then add the commander and hatch covers. The vehicle was sprayed with a couple of coats of Testors Dullcoat at this point to bring the sheen down.


Then there was a final application of dust pigments to the top deck to finish the weathering off and give the whole tank a nice scale effect.


Very happy with the end result.


This is not a traditional Games Workshop vehicle finish, with the edge highlighting and so on. However, it does harken back to the old days when I used to build Tamiya 1/35 armour kits. That was a long time ago!


Anyway, I was really happy with the way the camo scheme worked out, and the weathering pulls the whole thing together.


And now this guy is ready to hit the game tables at the LVO next month.


It was the first week of holidays for me this week, so I had time to knock off another model. This is the "anti-personnel" version of the Redemptor Dreadnaught...which I seem to need to fight off Elliot's Tyranids!


This was painted using the same steps as my last Redemptor, but I spent more time on the base this go around.


After building one of these, the second went together very quickly, and the paint scheme is simple and fun to do. Again, happy with the results.


'Til next time.