Dreadnought and Techmarine

It's been a long and drawn out process, but I've finally finished painting my first Space Marine Dreadnought ( first I've painted, that is) - I picked him up for a pittance on ebay, complete except for the banner pole.

The banner pole is made from a length of the black Space Crusade sprue, and I bought the winged skull from a bitz seller- I'm not sure which modern plastic kit it comes from but it's close enough to the original ( minus the crossed bones)

I used the BA Dreadnought transfer sheet and a printed banner, though I changed the 2 to a 3 on it and repainted the red border and black background.

With the Dreadnought completed, it seemed fitting to paint up this Techmarine in MK 4 Maximus armour too.

Talisman Gypsy and some familiar characters

Though painted more than a few months ago, I've struggled to get a decent pic of this mini until now-the skin always seemed to show up a lot browner than it really is.

The Talisman range is chock full of excellent miniatures, I have the Merchant, Gladiator and Crusader on the "to paint" list.

When I get burnt out on painting "armies", I like to treat myself to a nice characterful fantasy miniature like this.

Heroquest Barbarian as He Man.
It's not exactly an original idea, but it is a good one and had to be done!
I have a shelved Battle Cat WIP that I must get around to finishing too.

My man, Skeletor- taking a rest from his video blog of evil.
Skeletor's Video Log Of Evil

"You hate me how much?"

A few Night Gobbos

I was very much a latecomer to WHFB- I only bought in with the 7th edition starter set "Battle For Skull Pass"...but I've long admired the little green dudes with a penchant for fly agaric mushrooms.
I have a large (3000pts) army of the little buggers and their squig and Troll accomplices that is only partly painted, but seeing as I'm stuck in the middle of painting Space Marines with not much to show I thought I'd do a stop gap post with a couple of Night Gobs.

I just finished this guy, what a total dude of a miniature.

Unusually for me, my NG army is mostly modern minis.
"Boss Drokslit" here ( and the next guy, came 2 to a blister ) was my first purchase after the boxed game and the first one to get painted, and he has led the gits to inglorious defeat in what few, largely unpainted games of WHFB I have played.

He's had a few touch ups along the way.

"Boss Scabbrow"

He's a bad ass.

I was proud as punch when I got these two guys painted, the skulls on the rack gave me a real hard time back then, not having painted for years.
Like Drokslit, he's had a few touch ups along the way.

Shaman "Gakskat" - another modern NG.
I usually turn my nose up at the new fangled minis but Night Gobbos are an exception.

Yum!

MOAR SKULLS

Skarsnik, Warlord of the Eight Peaks and his pet Squig, Gobbla.
I really like the modern Skarsnik, but really dislike the modern Gobbla.

Inspirational Armies, or Imitation is the highest form of flattery

I'm continually amazed by the creativity displayed by people in this hobby, the out of the box paint jobs, conversions, scratch builds and pop culture references I see on blogs and forums blow my mind.
It almost makes me feel a bit dull just wanting to recreate the studio armies seen in White Dwarf and the books...almost.
I have a couple of projects that I plan on doing my own thing with, but what dragged me back into collecting and painting again in 09 was the idea that I would recreate the two armies from "The Fangs Of The Wolf" battle report, which was originally published in WD# 158 but was more familiar to me from it's appearance in the Space Wolf codex- and I do mean familiar because I studied and reread that battle report many, many times over the years!

Ably commanded by Andy Chambers in the report, this army was the bees knees to me back in 93 and although they weren't painted I had managed to collect the majority of it by the time I initially dropped out of 40K and miniatures etc somewhere around 97.
The rest ( and much much more) was picked up via ebay this second time around.

And the opposing Ork warband, commanded by Jervis Johnson as Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka.
My version of this won't be a carbon copy but will be pretty close.
I'm already more than halfway there actually...

Now when I got my first White Dwarf magazine, it was issue # 166.
All I had was a few Heroquest minis and Space Crusade at the time, and had only discovered the magazine and the larger world of 40K and the other games the previous week when I had read through a big stack of WD's on a holiday at my Brother's place.
The free plastic Marine Sergeant that came with it featured in my last post, and the battle report contained within it's pages was another Chambers V Johnson grudgematch, "Angels Of Death"

This is what I think of when I hear the words "Space Marine Army".
Getting this lot painted is my priority at the moment!
As you may well know, this is the battle report where Andy's "Brother Captain Erasmus Tycho" was slain by Jervis' Weirdboy, giving birth to the Tycho special character and mini.

The Orks, mostly the same models as in the Fangs Of The Wolf battle, with the plastic Goffs and Gretchin making an appearance.

This seemed like a HUGE army back then!
To my credit I've restrained myself from collecting Ultramarines and Dark Angels.

Hope you have enjoyed my nostalgic ramblings and the pretty pictures!

Blood Angel Progress

For the last couple of weeks I've been focusing on "the Ninth Legion", more specifically marines from the 3rd company of the Blood Angels Chapter.
I have a lot of Orks and Squats painted, so it seemed time that the power armoured chaps got some attention too, lest they accuse me of bias from their unpainted, dull chinese food container prison cells...as long term unpainted miniatures are known to do.

Brother Captain "Raguel Valerio"

The Sergeant here is a rather special mini for me, as he was my freebie from my very first WD, #166.
He was painted by my brother using enamels back in 93, I have given him a new coat of paint and lease on life, his banner is of that vintage too.
I'm currently working on his replacement ( the same mini ) but this guy holds sentimental value.

Here's the before shot, I thought this was an amazing paintjob back then!

The second half of the 1st Tactical.
While hardly the most inspiring miniatures, they have a nostalgic value for me.

Reinforcements for the Space Crusade squad. Shitty picture, sorry!

This one was just painted out of whimsy, mainly because the Space Crusade box pictured the Blood Angel Commander armed with the heavy bolter and I've always dug it.
In game, the BA guy is much better off with the power glove and sword.

A work in progress.