30K Calth and FW bits Kit bashing.

I started on the calth plastics and mass of random resin I've gathered in preparation for blood angels legion building. My first batch of 20 is stuck, along with the contemptor which I cut to pieces before sticking back together in order to give it a less static pose more like that of the resin FW ones.

They contain bits from calth, palatine blades, FW MKIV legion assault marines, Ultramarine, Blood angels, Sons of horus headsets. They need some sand, helmets, rocks and other basing bits before being sprayed.

I popped some bits together to look like a Sons of Horus Reaver having been shot up and about to be trampled. I need to check the rules, perhaps I need to get one of the resin missile launchers, maybe a terminator launcher will do?

When I've got a little time these will be getting based and batch airbrush based.

Blood angels 30k Legion progress group shot

I often forget to take pictures of things as I go, most notably when I'm painting to take things to a friend's place for a game where my painted blood angels tend to live as he very decently uses his flat like a gaming club for us. This unfortunately means when I remember I meant to take a picture of my guys, they're not always with me! So I thought I'd pop up a group shot of all my heresy area marines so far:

I've got a mix of FW Iron, Heresy and Maximus armour. As well as a couple of Corvus chapter masters.

The MKIV guys were done before the legion shoulder pads were released so I've gone with the old freehand and a few metal 40K BA pads.

I need to start better planning on my weapons, hopefully they give us inferno pistols as I've stuck a guy with one.

The other blood angels 30k demi tactical squad!

 Here you can better see the brightness of these guys, my previous post made them look a little darker than in person.

A quick side shot better shows how the airbrushed basing blends the models into their bases. No time to clean your feet mid battle! A touch of free hand to fill the shoulder pad space where I didn't have enough FW legion pads.

More obligatory blood drops and a back view.

I really like how these are coming along and hope the different shoulder pad trim colour fits alright with my normal black trimmed marines!

30k Blood Angels Iron Armour Demi Tactical squad

Here are the first few guys from my big airbrushed batch. Going to see if I can keep pumping them out as I've got a Calth and a whole box of bits of MKIV guys to get to once they're at least mainly done.

I went for slightly different angel colours, I tried black on the shoulder pads trim and it seemed too much so I went for a dark metal and washed it liberally with black instead. Sarge got some bronze trim.

I think the banner is supposed to go on the demi sarge... whoops.

I paint alot of blood drops to fill large spaces.

This mould line isn't so easily visible in real life but with the camera lighting it leaps out!

Another blood drop.

And finally the other guys!

GW Airbrush paints basing 30K Blood Angels

Just a quick post about the new (ish) GW Airbrush paints. I was pretty thrilled to see these come out as being able to colour match my guys and tanks using a brush or spray is great, I've previously used mephiston red spray but its a bit pricey and army painters dragon red slightly less if still pricey but dusty sprays to base my guys and then built up with paler reds to give the desired finish which has left me with a few different looks to my marines. Being able to spray on an undercoat, then the next two layers of red from a zenith to leave shadows ready to shade, highlight, weather and detail would save so much time! In fact I also went for airbrushing the bases to minimize time I'd have to spend on that too!

As you can see I was starting off with a mish mash of previously painted off ebay guys and some new fw suff with my normal kit bash mix of resin/plastic. I airbrushed on the black undercoat in vallejo black and then went in with the reds. Mephiston and then evil sunz scarlet.

The general coverage of the models was nice with good control, no blocking and spattering and a good even coat applied, without being too thick, straight from the pot. (Without a dripper pot I used a printer ink syringe to fill up the airbrush hopper on the go so I didn't have to stop mid way, this makes them trickier to use but then at the end you can put any excess paint back in the pot. So good and bad.)

The flow of the paint didn't cause any issues in coverage of the models but it did seem to clog up the airbrush quicker than a vallejo paint usually would. I find I periodically have to stop and clean my airbrush whatever paints I'm using, with these GW paints it was a little more often than with the Vallejo or MIG I've used before. Perhaps a less finely ground pigment issue?) Either way this wasn't a big deal other than it taking a little longer to get the batch finished. (Still alot less time than one by one using a brush mind!)

I went back and did the bases with browns another day, although I forgot to take a picture, sadly I didn't finish all my batch of Iron armour guys as I ran out of black undercoat! Doh! Still I got enough done to keep me going for awhile. I never finish anything I seem to start at the moment anyway so we will see how many I can get done before I distract myself again!