Konrad Curze - work in progress

I have been working for the past few days on the remaining models I currently own (although I have placed an order for some more) and the main one is Curze. Since I have been making some progress with the painting I thought it would be sensible to upload some in progress shots.

 So first up we have some work being done on the base for Curze, this has been simply given a base coat and then a ink wash, I am intending to add some layers to really create the contrast between the dark crevasses and the surface. The skeleton on the base will be done in a typical bone manner although I am considering a thick coat of gore on it. Once the stonework is the right tone I can add on the two solar suxilia corpses and then a liberal layer of gore which should stand out very nicely against the light stone and the whole thing should be a great contrast to the darkness of Curze's armor.

 This section hides the connection between the display base and the gaming base, it is my intention to magnetise this connection to make the transistion between display and gaming as simple as possible.

 Here is Curze's body with very baseline painting done, he has been primed, base coated, dry brushed and then a layer of clear blue applied. After that I have added some light grey on the bass reliefs on his legs which I am intending to ink wash in a similar fashion to the stonework and then drybrush to lighter colors in the same vein.

 The remaining armor pieces have been primed and base coated, I will be adding dry brush high lights and clear blue soon before getting to work on the detail.

So that's the current position with Curze, still a hell of a lot of work to be done and for the short term I am going to be focusing on the gaming base and Curze himself, the display base can take a bit longer - I have a large game scheduled for a couple of weeks time and my aim is to get everything I can including Curze ready to field for then.

We come for you

I have been working hard to get the aerial unit of assault marines completed and following purchasing some clump foilage I have been able to make some real progress and baring some minor touch up work they are done bringing me to 20 complete assault marines.

I think this works quite well and was surprising easy to achieve. There are defintely some adjustments to the technique which I would use next time round but even not using those tweaks I feel the end product was nice evocative. The only issue is going to be transporting them since they are somewhat larger than they would otherwise be.

Rebased assault

Continuing on from yesterday I managed to get the original squad of assault marines sorted out last night and here they are.

Rebased

So I have been working for the past week or so on getting some assault marines sorted out, mainly doing some work on the unit I had allegedly completed already when I noticed the quality of the painting was not really up to scratch as well as getting them ready for rebasing.
As it stands now they are more or less painted and they are glued to the new bases, I just need to take the time to apply the water effect gore to the bases to have them done which I should have done today but I have been distracted with family matters. I did get carried away when working on the replacement bases and got the terminator ones cleaned, primed and painted and when it came to rebasing they seemed a good choice since the bases are that little bit larger to make getting the gore in the right place a little easier.

Here is the end effect of these efforts....

A little finishing work is needed on these and the librarian could do with an additional layer of water effect but the basic feel is there I believe, once I have gored up the close combat weapons and ensured there is sufficient gore on the base they should look pretty good.
The assault marines will be finished in the next couple of days unless something very strange happens and then I will get back to work on the aerial unit of jump pack guys to get them done. After that it is the command squad on their jetbikes who should look awesome when I have their bases sorted out.

With a planned massive apocalyspe battle scheduled for the summer (approximately 20,000 points per side) I have a lot of painting to get done to be ready for it, especially since I have promised myself I am only taking proper completed models with me. Therefore unless I completely lose the track you can expect more frequent updates as I try to keep myself to a painting schedule to get from the current 500 points completed to something closer to 6,000 points by the summer while trying to maintain a reasonable level of quality.

Death from above

Following on for completing the first of my corpse bases I have been working hard to make some progress with the assault marines and today I completed the champion of the new squad and to be honest I am really pleased with how he has turned out.

For some reason my flash seemed to decide the lighting was sufficient to not be needed so i do not think all of the detail is showing up perfectly but hopefully this should be sufficient to give an idea of how he turned out.
I always knew I wanted to capture a dynamic pose for this guy and as such i quickly opted to make use of the heavy chainblade which came with the assault marines purchase, trimmed off the blade and added a chainglaive from zealot miniatures and it just leaned towards this highly aggressive stabbing pose. In fact it was the concept for this pose which led me to thinking that I need to modelling the second assault marines squad in aerial poses and I think it has really worked.

I also knew I had to have at least one guy in the army with gauntlets dyed with sinner's red as this has become quite the evocative aspect of night lords lore, I was never intending it to be a numerous thing and it had to be on someone who was not simply rank and file otherwise Curze would have simply killed him, it needed to be at least on a sergeant to justify the delay in the execution and this guy just felt right for it.

So there you go, the first of the second unit of assault marines and the first guy on one of the new corpse field bases, I hope he meets with approval or fear....

New bases for the Night Lords

After considering ways I could better capture the style and mood of the Night Lords in my army I came up with the idea of using more atmospheric bases than I have been using, doing some searching I came across the corpse field bases from Secret Weapon which are absolutely awesome. Combining those with some water effect mixed with red paint has created the gore effect on the base. I think some additional coats may be required to add some more depth to the liquid but I think this is setting up to add some really macabre style to the army.

The metal pole coming out of the base is going to be how I attach the first of the second unit of assault marines to the base. I am intending to have these guys in a aerial appearance with the pin connecting the base to the jump pack, the pin will be covered with cotton wool to resemble exhaust fumes with the intention of creating something a bit more dynamic.

Sorry about the lighting on these photo's, just could not seem to get the right set up for them but it should give the tone of what I am aiming for.

Outriders complete

Well almost anyway, currently they are only pending the night lord specific shoulder pads which I have not currently purchased for this unit but is planned for the next expansion to the force.

So that's the ourdiers, currently set up with the twin linked plasma guns but I have also painted up the twin linked bolters and I have avoided glueing any weapons in place for the time being and I am debating the best course of attachment as I am not sure there is a suitable location for magnetising them. Currently they are held in place with a small amount of blu tack for lack of anything more cunning.

More assault marines to come in the not too distant future and I am going currently planning to try something very different, if it pans out as I hope then there is going to be something in a change of style coming. More details to come when the tests are done.