Pocket full of victory!

So, to follow up from my previous painting contest post, I entered my Battlescape at the central location and waited for a call to hear how I'd done.

And waited...

And waited...

Until I finally called back and was told that I was the only one who had entered their Battlescape from the whole Metroplex... wow...

So anywho, I ended up scooping up the prize by default (which is still a win, right?)... The prize was I could choose any plastic model box up to a value of $60... so I picked up a Land Raider Crusader / Redeemer!

And today as I browsed around my favorite blogs, I read on the Cadian VIII blog that I won his giveaway contest... So double woot!... I picked the Space Wolf commander, since I've been leaning towards starting a Space Wolf army (along with half the WH40k fandom out there I guess)...

Good weekend, and good start to the week!

Weekend project update...

Just a quick update on my scattershot projects:

1. I have stripped most of my eBay metal figures, and after a couple of weeks of having them stand around looking self-conscious about not having any paint on them, I am going to prime them and start putting paint to model.

2. Next, I have basecoated two Rhino chassis, and my Land Raider with some Krylon Fusion spray paint. It goes on very evenly and smooth, especially the "Satin" finish, and it is very easy to paint over afterwards. I'm using "Dover White" for my vehicles, and hopefully that will save me from having to tone down a pure white basecoat.

I put some Macharius Solar Orange foundation paint on the Land Raider, just to block out the color scheme, and I was pretty happy with it. I'll post some pictures of it once I get home. I'll definitely have to apply several coats of paint to get it where I want it though...


3. Finally, I started my foray into making terrain. Up until now, my son and I have been playing small games on our kitchen table with overturned Tupperware bowls serving as terrain. It works, but it doesn't immerse you into the game like good terrain can. So  I took a block of styrofoam that I got out of a box of something or other that we bought, and I decided to make it into a temple of some sorts. I'll put up a separate post for it later, but for now, I thought I'd show my first steps (literally)...

I started cutting these with my Xacto, but I realized that it is definitely the wrong tool for the job. Not wanting to pop 30 bucks for a hot wire cutter, I picked up this utility knife from the feed store down the street. It has multiple blades, including a foam saw (pictured). It works great, and even if I don't get a nice even "cauterized" edge like I might with a hot knife, I think I can work with this.

Enjoy the pics, such as they are (I took them with my Blackberry since I left my camera at home, charging), and let me know what you think. What do you use to make your terrain?

Victory!

I was surprised to learn last night that my Battlescape was picked as the winner of the painting competition at my local (kinda) Lone Star Comics store...

I won a $25 gift certificate (1/4 of the way towards Space Hulk)...

Now I get to enter it against the winners of the other locations around town for a bigger prize.

The other entry I was up against was heavily converted, with an Ultramarine paint scheme and marines bailing out of the wrecked Rhino... but the manager at the store said that they liked the way I painted the stone around the craters.

When I get my entry back I'll post up some better pictures of it...

Now on to paint up my Land Raider and Predator that I primered yesterday.

Battlescape - Finished!

So, typically, I finished my Battlescape just in time to run to the gaming shop to enter it in the painting contest. The deadline being today by end of the day.

So before I dash, here are some pics of the finished product.

I'm pretty happy with it overall, but I wish I'd had some more non-sick time to customize it...

Let me know what you think.

The story so far... a Fluff Post...

Here is the outline for the background story of my chapter:

Chapter Name:
War Horns

Origins:
The War Horns chapter is a young one, having been founded in the year 654/M41, following a minor skirmish between the Ultramarines and an Ork raiding party on the agricultural planet Arcturus Prime.

During the skirmish, scouts from the 10th Company found themselves defending a stronghold outside the main planetary trading center. The ork forces were slowly enveloping the scouts when a local force of ranchers, mounted on transports improvised from farming equipment, charged the ork flank and provided enough of a distraction to allow the scouts to mount a breakout manuever and kill the raiding party leaders.

Once the remaining ork forces had been mopped up, the scouts recognized the valor of the planetary population, and nominated the planet to the High Lords of Terra as a good place for a Space Marine chapter founding.

The High Lords agreed, and declared a founding with the geneseed of the Ultramarines and White Scars being provided for the chapter founding.

The chapter's homeworld remains Arcturus Prime, a planet with vast fertile plains, surrounded by treacherous deserts and mountains. Arcturus is located in the Dominion of Storms.

The population of Arcturus is of a hearty, independent nature, being used to hardship and tenacity to surivive and thrive on a colonial planet. Their farms and ranches provide the forgeworlds of Corinth, Accatran and Metalica with food, and in turn the Adeptus Mechanicus ensures that the War Horns chapter's armory is properly maintained.

Organization:
The War Horns are organized in accordance with the Codex Astartes, with a heavy reliance on mobile warfare. Coming from a homeworld that has few established population centers, the War Horns are not content to fortify and defend positions, but always seek to take the fight to the enemy. Hence the lovingly maintained and detailed bikes of the VII company, and the thundering jetpacks of the V company.

Being a young chapter, the War Horns have many detached advisors from other Space Marine chapters that help round out their forces, and who provide insight during critical moments in battle. Chief among these are Sgt. Telion of the Ultramarines, who advises the X company of scouts and oversees the new battle brother's training. Sgt. Chronus of the Ultramarines directs the VIII company's heavy armor operations, and Kor'Sarro Khan, the White Scars Master of the Hunt instructs the VII company's bikers in the fine art of cavalry warfare.



OK, criticism and comments are welcome... Let me know what you think...

Dilemma: Warp tainted or not...

OK, so I've had this idea for my Space Marine bikers for a while, and I still go back and forth about whether the Inquisition would send someone after me for this or not...

I want to put horns on some of my bikers... not Chaos-style, sticking up, twisty, evil looking horns, but, you guessed it, Longhorns...

I bought some Chaos Space Marine heads, and I'm planning on cutting off the horns, straightening them out, and attaching them to the sides of my biker helmets...

Easier said than done for someone who's never messed with green stuff or converting minis, but I think it will give them a cool look, and make them stand out as a unit...

If it works, I might also do this for some sergeants and veterans... I mean, if Space Wolves can have a big ol' wolf head and pelt over their armor, why not some horns, right?

What do you think? I'd like to hear from you...

Picture Time...

Enough talk, here are the pictures of my "finished" models...

First, Sgt. Telion... Not the first model I painted, but the first Ultramarine I painted, very fun, and a nice model to play with...

Next is my first Space Marine... I got this guy from the GW shop in Grapevine, and one of the staff showed me how to put paint on a model... I brought him home and developed the paint scheme for my army...

After I got the paint scheme decided, I did my AoBR Tactical Squad...

And of course the Captain, Capt. Grex...

Here he is with some old metal models I'm turning into a Command Squad...

Here is my Dreadnought, the honored Furio... I need to add a smoke launcher to him...

These are my Landspeeders...

And my Terminator Sergeant, note the power sword with "lava lightning" effect...

And the rest of the Terminator Squad, with blue lightning power fists...

Here is my almost complete second Tactical Squad, they are missing a missile launcher...

This is a model I like a lot, an older metal Space Marine Captain with bolter and power fist. He'll be part of the Command Squad as well...

And now for my vehicles, here is my dozer-less Vindicator, with just the basecoat on him...

This Rhino is one I bought and assembled myself, the Predator turret is removable, but it's here to show off my Sgt. Chronus tank commander model...

This Rhino I bought off of eBay already assembled, but with a removable Razorback turret, the walking Sgt. Chronus is catching a ride on him....

And finally, I have about 3 Tactical Squads of black primered marines, and I'm playing around with an alternate paint scheme for them, as well as the fluff reason for there being another armor color. Fluff to be posted as soon as I finish rattling it around in my head...

Well, feel free to critique my models, I've enjoyed painting them temendously. I know I won't win any awards with them, but it's a nice stress reliever, and a fun hobby...

Battlescape

Adeptus North Texas is having a Battlescape painting contest in conjunction with Lone Star Comics.

Basically, you have to buy a battlescape and paint the rhino in your chapter colors. Deadline for entries is September 30th.

Never having done one of these before, and coveting some terrain, I am entering this contest. I got my battlescape yesterday, and brought it to work. After work, I primed the whole thing with some Krylon Fusion paint I picked up at Walmart.

I decided to get a satin khaki color, to make the battlescape a high plains desert sort of landscape. I sprayed it inside, since it's raining outside, despite the recommendations of using the spray in low humidity.

I let it dry an hour, and the finish is very nice. Even coating, and no "fuzzies" or "dusties" evident. I think I just found my new plastic primer of choice...

Now to take it home and get some of my homemade brown and black washes on it. This is going to be cool... I just have to get some creative idea on how to make it stand out from the other entries... besides the cool Longhorn icon I'm painting on the side... Maybe a wrecked banner? Hmmm....

Good weekend!

Well, the fam was away this weekend, and so to keep me occupied and out of trouble I comandeered the dining room table and got some painting done.

What did I get accomplished? Well, despite what I said last time, I decided that having an unfinished Terminator squad was just not going to cut it. Yes, they had orange and white armor with green eyes, but they looked very blah... and the sergeant just didn't pop either with his boltgun grey power sword.

So I took some time to review some tutorials on power weapons and set out to do my own. Since the army is orange, I didn't think a blue power sword would look right, so I decided to do a red "lava lightning" sword.

This was accomplished by first repainting the entire sword black, and then tracing a lighning pattern over the black with some Gore Red. Once that was dry, I retraced the pattern with some Blazing Orange, and then took some yellow and traced a very fine line inside the orange.

As I usually use a magnifier to help me get up close with details, I wasn't too impressed with the result until I looked at it without magnification, and wow! The sword really pops!

Emboldened by this success, I then decided to go for some blue lightning on the power fists of the other terminators and a Rogue Trader Captain that I have been working on. For the power fists, I started with a base coat of Regal Blue, then some highlights of Ultramarine Blue, moving up to Ice Blue, and then a baby blue that I got from Walmart in random "slashes" to simulate some lightning. Overall, the effect is a nice one, not as much of a wow factor as the sword, but definitely nice enough that it looks like I spent some time on it.

Then I mixed up a pot of black wash, and gave the stormbolters a nice black undercoat, along with all the guns for my tactical squads I've been working on. Once they black was dry, I took some boltgun metal and drybrushed it over the guns, and made them nice and metallic.

Finally, I got some of my Burnished Gold, and hit all the badges and decorations.

And voila! One terminator squad finished and ready for action.

I then took my two landspeeders and gave them the black and boltgun treatment on the bumpers, and highlighted the aquilas to get them done (except for the pilots, I know, I know)...

And then I finished up some more members of my tactical squad. I now just need the missile launcher to have a fully fleshed out squad of 10.

Once my eyes got tired, and my hands got too shaky, I decided to fish my Vanguard Veteran squad out of the simple green bath they'd been sitting in for a week.

Usually one week of Simple Green is enough to get models looking brand new, but these fellas look like they've seen some rough times. All the paint came off, but there seems to be a bit of oxidation on them which makes them dull and crummy looking... I'll do some research to see why this might be, and what if anything I should do about it...

Finally, just in time for their appointment with the Simple Green jar, my squad of Sternguard Veterans arrived in the mail. One of the models is bare metal, but was super glued horribly, with some globs of glue showing at the joints, and the left arm not matching up to the boltgun correctly. I put him in a plastic ziploc bag, and applied my precision ungluing technique: I dropped him from about 6ft onto the tile floor. The arms flew off, and I was able to get all of the superglue off of him, leaving him ready for priming.

The rest of the squad went into the vat. They look like they were meant to be some sort of Blood Angel squad or something, but the painting was very globby, and their white painted helmets were almost devoid of all detail. But they'll be nice and shiny by next weekend.

Whew... I was so productive, I don't know what to do with myself now...

Progress

So far, so good.

I have challenged myself to paint 3 out of 7 days a week. Last week I managed to paint up 1 full tactical squad to tabletop standard.

This means that I applied a base color and did an accent color and painted the eyes and guns of the squad.

No icons, no purity seals just yet, but it would allow me to play with those models without feeling totally cheesy by playing with grey (or white primered) models.

I also finished my Sgt. Telion model, completely detailed and assembled, and he looks good!

I'll have to take some pictures and post him up.

So the story so far:

- Finished Models:
2 Rhinos
2 Tactical Squads
2 Landspeeders (w/o Crew)
1 Dreadnought
1 Vindicator (w/o Dozer Blade)
1 Terminator combat squad
1 Sgt. Telion
1 Sgt. Chronus (tank commander)

- In progress:
1 Sgt. Chronus (walking model)
1 Tactical Squad
1 Landspeeder
2 Razorback turrets
1 Predator turret and sponsons
1 Vindicator Dozer Blade

- Pending:
Too many to count...

This time, for real!

OK, so this time I will really start maintaining my blog.

A quick update, not possible...

Life is good. I am fully invested in my Space Marine army, I have over 100 models awaiting painting, and bits enough to assemble 40 or 50 more... and that's just the infantry.

How did I get to this point? It started with me getting the AoBR set to try the game out, and have an activity that I could share with my son that wasn't XBOX related. Of course I bought the SM Codex as well, and while the paint was drying on the tactival squad, I decided to go out and buy some bikers, since I liked the White Scars concept.

From there, I decided I needed more bikes, lots more... so I went on eBay and got an incredible deal on bikes (5 and 6 bucks a piece) so I picked up three full squads.

Next, I decided I wanted to try a poseable, modular tactical squad, and of course. a tactical squad needs a rhino, or two, or four...

Oh, did I mention I thought the landspeeders were cool too?

And then the topper, the driver for all vehicle and arm bits purchases, I went to the Bizarre Bazaar and picked up a shoebox of SMs for $30 bucks... the kid that sold it to me said there might be 3 full squads in it, but a quick eye count told me there was more... well I was right... there were 9 tactical squads, not counting a DA squad, and several nice metal models (Librarian, Termie Chaplain, Chaplain, 2 standard bearers, etc.)...

So here I am, my mantle is full of troops and vehicles, but none of them are quite "done" due to my incessant reading about tips and techniques that I want to try for my army... so I have decided that I am done having an assembled, hodgepodge looking army of models I bought, but never touched... Starting this week, I am dedicating time and effort at least 4 times a week to painting and advancing my assembled models...

Progress so far this week:
I have white primered all of my metal models that were previously dunked in Simple Green and stripped. The primer came out blah, with some dusting, that was mostly taken care of with a toothbrush and much cursing...

I have painted the first coat of orange on 10 models of a previously white primered tactical squad, and I have done up one test model of a black primered marine to test an "alternate" night-fighting color scheme...

I am excited, just getting color on those 10 models has made a world of difference in my outlook, and now I can envision the day when I will have a full orange colored army to crush my enemies with... For the Emperor!

Welcome to the party pal...

Well here it is, I am finally taking the leap and starting a 40k blog.

I have been reading many of the blogs available, and have been inspired to start my own so I can chronicle the rise of my army.

I am new to the hobby, having just started in April with the AoBR starter set, but in just two months I have amassed a whole company of Space Marines, along with assorted Rhino-based vehicles.

I had been wanting to get into 40k for a while, but I was always put off by the idea of having to paint figures. I'm pretty creative normally, but I'm not much of a painter, but with just a few tips from the local GW staff and some fellow players I've been able to develop a paint scheme that I'm proud to have people check out when I'm playing.

The inspiration for my army comes of course from being a huge Texas Longhorns fan. I wanted to incorporate the logo and colors without being a blatant rip off or having my army look like football players with guns.

So here begins my chronicle... I'll try to provide a beginner's point of view, and hopefully provide some advice and inspire someone else who thinks that they can't paint their models to take up a paintbrush and get in the game...