The Best Day of the Year

If you've been following this blog for the last several years, you know that my favourite day of the calendar is the day we return to standard time. That day, when you get an extra hour of weekend, far and away outshines every other day of the year for pure joy. Period.

Every year, I try to invest that extra hour into an ongoing hobby project. So, this time around, that extra hour got sprinkled between a few things going on at the hobby table.

To start, I picked up the new Shadespire expansions on Saturday, and dove straight into the skeleton box.

Each model consisted of only two pieces, but what results is the most dynamic set of skeletons I've ever run across...and I've painted more than a few sets of skellies in my time.

On to the day's two main projects. Two character models for my 40K Dark Angels force. First up, Azreal. Now, the actual Azreal model is a small, pathetic chunk of metal which looks to be a few decades old. I'm making my own from a Primaris Captain model, but salvaging the banner and relic bearer from the original. Here are the component parts of the Azreal I'm making.

Also, there's Belial. This is the Deatwing commander, put out by Games Workshop and moulded in the absolutely horrible FineCast resin. What a piece of junk. But, the model's pose and detail is nice, so I'm going to push through it. Needless to say, cleaning the pieces to a half-acceptable state nearly saw me throw this model in the garbage.

I also wanted a special base for the Azreal model, so I picked the "steps" from the GW heroic bases set. Base coated brown.

I pinned all the pieces for the two models, in preparation for painting.

Base coats were done in three colours, depending on the item and final intended finish. Black, white and Zandri Dust.

Belial started with Zandri Dust (in order to get the bone-coloured Terminator armour portions correct), but the majority of the model is green...so I put blue-tac over the armour portions (and face) and started spraying the green.

And without two much effort, got the major colour areas done before going in with washes and a few highlights. More to come on this one.

All the other components got their base colours in an epic airbrush session.

Over the course of the day, I went into various bits and started to add in detail, like painting Azreal's new head. This piece is about half-way done at this point.

I was able to complete one component before calling it a day in the hobby room, and that was Azreal's base. 

 Really, it was just a nice, relaxing hobby room day, without any pressure of a pending tournament or game to get ready for. The extra hour really helped, and I'm hoping to get a finished piece out on Wednesday.

'Til next time.