Lord of Heresy

It has certainly been a very busy hobby weekend for me! I don't know where the inspiration came from but I'm just not questioning it as I've gotten so much done and I'm still in the mood for more (unfortunately real life intends to get in the way of my inspiration kick and I've got to resist the urge to book time off work.

To kick things off; voila! One Sorcerer of Tzeentch in Terminator Armour. In keeping with my green spot colour you'll notice that his staff is green and all the eyes are green too. The green of the staff was achieved with a little Waywatcher Green over silver (I wanted a noticeable but subtle colouring).

I'm actually most surprised with how the rock he's standing on turned out as I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it match the Agrellan Earth I used for the base. It was quite simple to do; Baneblade Brown with an edge highlight and drybrushing with Flayed One Flesh. I was shocked myself when it worked first time.

While I'm loving the look of the cape/cloak/whatever I'm debating whether to repaint the fur. My original plan was to have it looking like a Fenrisian Wolf's fur but I don't think the effect is right. The idea behind this being to express the hatred between the Space Wolves and the Thousand Sons (according to my army fluff all of the Sons of the Cyclops were originally Thousand Sons) by proudly displaying a trophy from a battle but it's starting to look to me like he picked up a worn out rug and threw it on so that may be up for a repaint in future.

Everything else I've done on the model has been covered in other posts so I won't bore you with repetition but instead I'll just say that I've really enjoyed painting this guy and a lot of care went into him and this post has taken exactly the length of my commute to write. I'm off to a good start to the day I think.

The Birds and the Bees

The past few days have been pretty big for my hobby drive and to show for it I've got a few things to show you...

Oh yes ladies and gents, I finished the Heldrake and 10 Horrors! I'm also very near to completion with my Tzeentch sorcerer in Terminator Armour, started playing around with a few ideas for the Tzeentch Herald I don't like (I like the individual components I used to make him but I'm not keen on them all together), worked on an Abaddon conversion, fixed my Exalted Seeker Chariot (the clam pack Herald looks much better on that) and a few other bits too.

Starting with the Heldrake I think my favourite part of him is the wiring under his neck. Something clicked in my head this week and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with him and how he was going to look and this is the result.

I've been using green as a spot colour for my army and helping to tie my more colourful units into the army (i.e. My cultists. The issue I had was that the green on the Heldrake needed to look more functional than decorative and the yellow highlights I was using for the infantry, while effective, didn't create the right effect for me and so for this I decided to not use any yellow whatsoever but used Gauss Blaster Green instead and I'm very pleased with the result as it looks like some form of energy source.

I have a few plans for the base that may or may not require a hot glue gun but that's for another time I'm afraid.

These guys were looking like they might be a problem for me because of my mental block with them last time and this time I couldn't get motivated to paint them at all. The problem being that I don't enjoy painting that much pink. A little bit on a Slaanesh Chosen is fine but that much... I'm not a fan. I decided to shake it up a little and embrace change so I painted them blue and green which was obviously a good idea as I finished in around a week!!

I decided not to do my usual fire with these guys as I wanted to try something a little different. It was my main thought while I was painting the Horrors and I still hadn't come up with a solution when I'd finished everything else so I dug around in my head a little. I had originally planned to paint these Horrors in purple (can't quite remember how they ended up blue) so I decided to create a little homage to the original idea and have purple flames. 

Their feathers were actually inspired by a suggestion by @wilsongrahams on Twitter while I was painting a Tyranid Termagant (more on that another time) who suggested that I look through the Lizardmen army book for some colour scheme inspiration. While I didn't find anything in there I liked for my Tyranids I did quite like how the feathers were done so I went back through my pile o' White Dwarf magazines to the issue from the Lizardmen release and lo and behold there was a quick and easy way of doing the feathers in a way I liked. Basically they were base coated in Ceramite White, given a Lamenters Yellow glaze and then Waywatchers Green was applied in thin coats to create a blend effect. 

So there we have it. After posting this I plan to get some household stuff done (boring) and then crack on with my Tzeentch Terminator sorcerer. I just need to finish his gun and his staff and he's done (I may have gotten impatient and already based him...). So if all goes to plan then I may be powering through another chunk of my armies today.

The Rubric Effect

It has once again been a while but I've started a new job so getting used to that has been a bit of a struggle as well as having to deal with everything else but I have managed to do some painting! I've managed to finish a basic five man squad of Thousand Sons which, in the spirit of my Black Legion Company dream, have been painted to match my Sons of the Cyclops scheme. I said it when I painted the Sorcerer and I'll say it again here; I do really love this colour scheme. The reason for this is that not only is it very different to how most people paint their Thousand Sons but also the black armour allows for the blue and gold to really pop as spot colours. 

The Great Game

In anticipation of upcoming battles I decided to test out what my units can do and while I was limited by time I managed a few tests with my 4 Heralds.

Working the Forge of Souls

It has certainly been a while since my last post (again) but there's a reason for that which is that I've been very focused on my painting. This focus has meant that since deciding my New Year's Resolution to paint a unit a week I've actually been able to do it so yay me.

This boost in my progress means that I've got plenty to show you and I'll start by showing my Blue Scribes kit bash which was more of a pillaging of the leftover bits and pieces from the Burning Chariot kit. Without further ado...

All is Dust

It has once again been a while but that's because I've been planning this project for even longer than I was painting it and I was painting it for about four days. Today I present to you an Aspiring Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons!! Now you may have noticed that the main colours are not blue and gold (though they certainly feature) but black and white. Stick around and I'll take you through what I did, how I did it and why.

All for one

Today I offer up four Champions to the Chaos altar of t'internet for sacrifice. By which I mean I finally got my act together and painted some more Chaos Space Marines. These were sort of an experiment of combining various styles and techniques while creating a cohesive central theme at the same time and I like to think that it was a success and I hope you agree. In light of the forthcoming hardback version of the Black Legion supplement I'm painting my Chosen Marines (and most of the rest of my CSM) as Black Legion. At least until another supplement comes out and I start painting some stuff for that one. I think I'm going to end up with a set of models worthy of the Index Astartes by the time I'm done. I think we'll need a bigger display cabinet...

Bitter Enmity

There are two things I want to show you in this post and one of them is my brand new models! Now I've only been able to clean the mould lines so far so they look a little plain but trust me they'll be amazing.

Delayed Manifestion

It's only taken a few months but I finally finished my Pink Horrors!! My life they were really boring to paint, I'm guessing it was the constant block colour and the small details weren't enough to break it up. I think for my next unit I'll have to come up with some new colour schemes to break up the monotony. I don't even like pink that much...

Trust me, it isn't a Bird...

Today is the day I finished my Screamer unit, can I hear cheers? No? Ok then, moving swiftly on...

I decided to mix it up a little by adding some colour onto one of the Screamers and I've tied it into my Horrors (which I promise will be the next thing I paint and finish if it kills me). The greyish blue was nice but a little too blocky for my liking so a little splash of colour in the right place broke it up without being too garish (irony being that Tzeentch is garish personified but I do like a bit of irony).

Screaming Blue Murder

Even after writing out my to do lists and seeing the sheer amount of models I've got to paint I still went out today and bought a box of Screamers. I was a huge fan of these when I saw them years ago but they've just gotten better with the plastic releases. The reason I bought them was that I was in the mood for some more crazy Tzeentch painting but I've not had much inspiration for my Lord of Change yet and my Horrors are the least inspiring of all the models I've painted even though they feature heavily in each game scenario I've run through in my head. As I've just done my Flamers I had nothing to satisfy my desire to go crazy so I trotted off to Merry Hill with Christmas money in hand so thanks to my nan and great-nan for that.

Burning the Midnight Oil

A flash of inspiration is sometimes all it takes to achieve something fantastic... Sometimes though it can just be some small children hassling you to show them what a large drybrush does, which is what happened today. As I was preparing some of my recently acquired models to have their paint stripped my nephews were asking what each brush and tool I own is for so I decided to just show them. I'd already base coated my Flamers in Mephistion Red and given them a wash of Carroburg Crimson but I had no idea where to go next. My demonstration of the dry brush technique had me use Troll Slayer Orange and from there my Daemonic muse took over and gave me the idea to carry on with the fire colours for the main body instead of the flames themselves. The next layer was another dry brush of Yriel Yellow followed by a 60:40 mix of Yriel Yellow and White Scar as both a dry brush and an edge highlight. Finally a very light dry brushing of White Scar around the edges of the mouths. The teeth were painted in the usual way (Zandri Dust, Ushabti Bone and Screaming Skull). The flames were done in 3 different sets of colours; pink, purple and blue. The pink flames were done in Screamer Pink, Pink Horror, Emperor's Children and dry brushed in Changeling Pink (side note, I never actually used Changeling Pink when I painted my Changeling. Funny.) The blue flames were based in Caledor Sky, dry brushed with Calgar Blue, then with Fenrisian Grey. Finally the purple was done with Xerus Purple, then Genestealer Purple, Daemonette Hide and finally Slaanesh Grey. A lot of dry brushing but I'm very happy with the results. Oh also the eyes were picked out with Temple Guard Blue.

Changing with the Times

As you can see, the Changer of Ways has been very much in my head today as I've not only assembled my Lord of Change but I've also (finally) completed The Changeling! It's a glorious day for Tzeentch, it really is.

The problem has been his staff; I didn't like it so it just blocked all desire I had to finish him but after going through my Chaos Space Marines (more on them in their space soon) I noticed the Tzeentch standard and it suddenly all fell into place. I've really been playing around with my highlighting lately and it really shows on the staff which I'm really pleased with. I've kept the details on the staff to the bare minimum because it had the potential to completely overwhelm the model which I really didn't want so while it's highlighted there are no bright colours.

The Greatest Change of All

My Lord of Change arrived today so naturally I had to assemble him. After examining all of my books and magazines that feature this Daemon I decided to have a little play with his stance to make him more dynamic and less like he's just standing there being boring. I wanted him to look like he's right in the action changing those enemies into the worm food of tomorrow.

Staff Shortage

As you know (if you read the last post on the subject) my Changeling staff was... Diminished. By that I mean I accidentally broke the top off of it so I was thinking of whether I wanted to put it back on or find something different to do. Well, dear readers, I found something else to do... I stuck two Chaos icons back to back and then added those to the staff instead. The staff is now less imposing but I like it; now the focus is entirely on the body and the detail of the robes as opposed to seeing the staff first. I haven't painted it yet but I've taken a couple of pictures so see below.

Signs of change

Last night saw some drastic changes to The Changeling such as the arms all being finished and runes painted onto his robes. At around less than half a centimetre each the runes really were a pain to paint but apart from a little tidying up on a couple of them that needs to be done I'm pleased with how they've turned out.

Change is upon us

My poor Changeling has been feeling neglected of late so I've decided to make it my mission this week to finish him.

Last night I did a Drakenoff Nightshade wash over the robe and then painted each of the arms in the various colours of Chaos. I did paint the Tzeentch arm blue without even thinking but when I stopped I realised that the arm would blend into the robes and that's not good.

Further on and further in

I haven't really made much in the way of progress over the last few days, partly due to being really tired and partly due to a lack of light bulbs but I've done a little more today so I'll share the progress with you.

Firstly the Changeling. It's really depressing me that he's just sitting on my windowsill, part painted and looking a little less that one dimensional so I've done a little more work on his robe. I've blended from Temple Guard Blue to Calgar Blue and then from Calgar Blue to Altdorf Guard Blue and while it looks subtle in the pictures it's actually looking pretty striking. I just need to give it a wash with Drakenhof Nightshade to pick out the detail again (I'll neaten it up with a cotton bud so I don't have to repaint the raised areas) and then I can focus on the arms. After the arms will be the staff and then the fine detail of the cloak.

Praise be to Tzeentch!

Or at least that's along the lines of my latest project will say. Completed: one Herald of Tzeentch with pictures to follow below.

As my horrors are all pink I made him blue to contrast. To mark him as more than just a horror (and also to represent one of his gifts) I cut the tongue and tonsils away and added a metal arm from the old horrors. I had 2 old arms, both with and without flame but I decided to give my herald the Flames of Tzeentch gift so I chose the flame hand.

Nurgle Paced Progress

We all know the pace that Nurgle daemons move at. Very very slow. That's basically where I am with my projects right now, I'm getting through them but really slowly.

Yesterday I did some work on my herald of Tzeentch, or angry Papa Smurf as I'm currently calling him because he's all blue. I know, so original.

The other day I worked on The Changeling (as you saw) but today has been reserved for my chariot, or The Beast as I like to call it. Ironic that in an army full of actual beasts it's the non-living structure that gets that nickname.