Work in Progress

Modeling - Models - Painting - Warhammer 40K

First new Plague Marine squad finished, and modifying the second squad

May 12, 2018 by 0 Comments

It’s taken a while, but I finally got my first set of the new plastic Plague Marines finished. I should say, these are the Plague Marines from the Dark Imperium box set, not the multi-part kit. Still it’s nice to have them off the painting bench and ready for the table.

Plague Marine squad, completed

As you can see from the picture, I’ve kept the motif of using Goblin Green on the rim of the bases. I realize some might say the use of green on the rim is old-fashioned, but I’ve used it on all my Chaos Space Marine models, and I wanted to keep that theme going in the new models. As far as the paint scheme goes, I found the Ogryn Camo paint to be an excellent highlight of the Vallejo GC Camouflage Green. I thought it did so well I didn’t do a second highlight for the armor plates.

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Painting - Warhammer 40K

Highlights on Plague Marines finished

May 7, 2018 by 0 Comments

I’m doing a quick update here on my Plague Marines. I’ve gotten all the highlighting I wanted done. It took a little longer than I expected because my time for painting came in short bursts. That led to more wasted paint than I like, but I’m glad to have the ball moved forward.

Plague Marines squad, highlights done

This squad has seen a lot of time on the painting shelf and I’m glad I’m nearing the finish line with them. I apologize about the rough lighting. While I’ve gotten my painting and hobbying space sorted out, I still haven’t gotten around to setting up proper lighting for taking pictures. I think the modified method I used to make these Plague Marines look close to my old dipped Plague Marines has worked out well so far. Continue reading “Highlights on Plague Marines finished”

Painting - Warhammer 40K

Closing in on completion with the new Plague Marines

April 22, 2018 by 0 Comments

I know it’s been a while, again! But I’m back with an update. Real life and some other distractions have continued to make working on my Plague Marines a challenge, but I’ve kept the ball moving forward on them. I haven’t posted any in-progress shots of these guys, unfortunately. They did make an appearance in a previous post, though. Working on these new Plague Marines has been fun, but also a bit challenging. The models are loaded with detail, so it takes me a lot longer to paint each one, even when I’m using short cuts. The current Chaos Space Marine line troops just don’t have as much “decoration,” so to speak, so painting them is much easier. The total color palette isn’t that varied on those models. Or rather, it doesn’t have to be. With the new Plague Marines I have to make more conscious decisions on what colors to use, because the decorations aren’t just extra trim and spikes. Now there are tentacles, trophies, blight grenades, exposed mutated skin, mutated armor, and all the like. You can’t just paint all that stuff green and think it’ll look interesting on the tabletop.

Plague Marines squad, working on highlights

So as you can see above, I’ve gone through the base coats and through most of the highlights. The fellas on the left are actually done with everything. The last thing I did on them was the green armor highlights. The rest of the squad on the right has yet to have those green armor highlights.

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Modeling - Models - Warhammer 40K

Considering the new Plague Marines

January 30, 2018 by 1 Comment

Over the holidays, I grabbed one of the new boxes of Plague Marines to add to my growing collection of plastic Plague Marines. While I had initially resisted the temptation, I think I am going to slowly move all my Death Guard Plague Marine models over from metal to plastic. I’ve already built the squad from the Dark Imperium Box and I nearly have them all painted up. I also got the First Strike box. That means I have quite a few of the Easy-to-Build variety of Plague Marines. I wanted to see what the new multi-part models looked like.

New Plague Marines

Here are some of my first impressions. The multi-part kit comes with a lot of options for the squad. In fact, it comes with enough parts to build at least one of any option (except one) you can put on the Plague Marines. That means you can build at least one Plague Marine with the Great Plague Cleaver or a plasma gun, but you can’t build two with just one box. So if you want to max out one one option, you are going to need at least two (or more) boxes of Plague Marines. You can also try to pull bits off eBay, though that will lead to a possible problem (more on that in a second). I do think having all the options in the box is a great feature. It makes life a lot easier for folks who don’t have the time or skill for conversion work. It also makes the general building process quicker.

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Beyond the Gates of Antares - Modeling - Painting - Warhammer 40K

Updates: Armies on Parade and Antares

October 29, 2017 by 3 Comments

It’s been a little while – over a month, now – since I posted. A lot of real life stuff, including a new house and moving into said house, has meant almost zero hobby time until this past week. But now that things have settled down, I’m getting back into the swing of things. So, here are a couple updates.

First up is an Armies on Parade board. After missing the last couple of Armies on Parade events, I promised my local Games Workshop shop manager I’d participate. Knowing I wouldn’t have time for something amazing with the board, and it being a little while since I did something like this, I decided to go the simple route. I wanted to do a two-tier board to keep it from being completely boring. The three options I though about were a centralized tier, an unbroken back tier, or a split back tier. As you can see, I went with the third option.

Armies on Parade board, foam

The Armies on Parade rules say the board limit size is 24″ x 24″ with no real height limit. Height wasn’t really my concern this time around. I did go for the full size limit on the board because I was concerned about running out of space. I picked up two 2′ x 2′ squares of insulation foam and a thin plywood 2′ x 2′ board from my local Home Depot, along with a 2″ brush and big bottle of wood glue. I glued the base foam square to the wood board. I figured the would would act to reinforce the foam for transport, as well as protect it in case of any accidental drops. Once that was dry, I marked off where I wanted the tier pieces to go, then I use a hot wire foam cutter to carve appropriate chunks out of the other piece of foam. I smoothed out the foam surfaces where the cuts were made and then glued the pieces down.

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