Armour is coming!!!

While my blog hasn't been getting much love, our models have...  I took my entire collection on travel from Saudi to Alaska with me, and NOTHING broke [thanks to my trusty new BattleFoam Black Label case!!!  no, I am not getting paid for that endorsement, it is simply the most magical toy box I have ever bought...]

Here are thumbnails of most of the vehicles on the work bench after getting three shades of yellow, and a glaze.

The Jet Bikes ... 4 Heavy Bolters, 2 Vulkites

Two Rhinos... all the better to deliver your pizza in.

Two Land Raiders (yes, only one pictured) for delivering Termies.

The Spartan!!!  The most stylish heavy transport going, I think.

A Storm Eagle, super dope looking, and tactically flexible.

And, of course, a Fellblade for when you absolutely have to squish your foes dead from a healthy distance.

 

More to post in the next couple of days... however, I'm making the final push to get things ready for the Heresy Gaming Weekend, so I may not have time to post until I get back.

A daunting Project Schedule deserves a post of its own...

When you put it in black and white (and add some snazzy color) my project list looks much bigger than I thought it was . . .  I have a mere 160 models to get painted in the next month.  Here's what it looks like:

Hopefully my airbrush and compressor won't let me down any time soon.  :-')

A busy four day stretch!

I have a reasonably insane schedule set for myself to get 6000 points of Imperial Fists table-worthy for the Horus Heresy Gaming Weekend in August, so I've been at it hard the past few days trying to get models churned out.

Here's what's new:

The Legion Fellblade is fully assembled, primed, and ready for pre-shading on my airbrush stand... this pic is from the 80% built point, because I just couldn't resist taking a picture of this handsome devil!!!

Six Legion JetBikes now stand ready for a wash down to get the accelerant off of them, and get them in to the "paint booth" for priming.

Twenty Legion Tactical Marines (my first 20-man squad) are complete, washed, and ready for priming this afternoon.

Two Land Raider "early Mark" Phobos conversions are now fully assembled, ready for gap filling and then priming.

And, last but not least, I've gotten the interior of my Legion Land Raider Spartan painted. This shot is early on, before I shaded these panels. I've sealed these bits with Matte Varnish, masked them off, and put the exterior on the air brush stand next to the Fellblade for pre-shading.

Whew! It's been a fun four days... and I'm right back at it trying to get 15 Assault Marines done today! Wish me luck!!!

Recon in the HOOOOOUSE!!!

The Space Marines are elite -- granted.  But amongst the Elite there have to be some guys with brass balls, right?  In my opinion the F/W Recon Marines look to be those guys.  So, I couldn't help but put 10 of them together and flip them into a Storm Eagle.

 

I was a bit concerned that these guys would come in a dozen pieces that would be hard to fit nicely (some older F/W kits were certainly that way), however, they can as a pleasant to deal with package.  Each torso had a number (in reverse braille)with arms and other bits marked to match making it super easy to get them together.  The backpacks were also a nice single piece design.

I think they look pretty cool, now I just have to paint them in a scheme that makes them look as Bad-A painted as they do in the online catalog . . .

I'm planning at this point to paint them a Matte Grey, maybe something akin to the Red Scorpions.  As I'm going for a "Defense of the Palace" theme, I thought maybe they could fit nicely as part of Garro's growing group of Knights Errant... we'll see how that back-story plays out in the next few F/W rule sets.

Here's the Storm Eagle, ready for a primer coat.  Legion doors to follow.

That's all for today's update.  I'm back to the work bench to try getting two Land Raiders and 30 Tactical Marines done in the next 24 hours!!!

Who knew Land Raiders come as a Convertible?!?

So, I'm clearly not very good at this blogging thing, but I'm making progress on my Imperial Fists Legion force, and thought I'd start sharing as it's coming along.

In my first post of the new year I thought I'd share my Land Raider Proteus / Phobos MkI "convertible".  I really didn't think I could stand having a expensive Forge World chassis only have one load-out, and I love magnets, so I came up with this.

The assault ramp is mostly plasticard, with a F/W Imperial Fist Land Raider Door for the top deck for both rigidity and embellishment.  It's held in place with two magnets.  I intend to make a banner that will hang with them on the front of the chassis for those occassions when it is running as a Proteus.

More pics of this, and other items from the work bench to follow!

Half Way There...

As it stands now, 34 out of 68 chaps I have lined up to build are built and primed -- on top of a Deadknight, Coteaz, and two Rhinos for my son. Another 34 await the assembly line. Woo whoo, the half way point!!! The good news (for me) is that I have press-molded the shoulder pads for nearly all of the batch ahead... that has proven to be an annoyingly slow process. Honestly, it's probably not one I would repeat unless the painted results turn out to be stunning (which I am not convinced of...)

My timing couldn't have been better to get motivated to get these all done -- "SUMMER IS COMING" (he says in a not very believable Game of Thrones paraody...) In true Riyadh fashion, yesterday was our first 100 deg (Fahrenheit) day of the year, and today was 104... looks like the window to prime models without incurring brain damage from spray painting indoors will be closed here in about another two weeks... best get cranking!!!

A few of my favorites are the Mk II helmet with Melta, the Mk III Sergeant with the old-school Power fist, and the running, clenched fist Melta gunner.

In this last shot are my two Devastator Sergeants, a Mk V Sergeant, and another view of my running Melta dude. You can see from these two shots that I have press-molded a FIST icon onto about one in three torsos.

More soon... I hope...

Kids, don't draw on the monitor . . . oh . . . wait?!?

I am SOOOOOOOO excited.  There is only one WACOM reseller here in Saudi who stocks the Cintiq 24HD -- probably the coolest illustration device EVER -- and they just called me to let me know that someone cancelled their pre-order, and I can pick up my Cintiq tomorrow!!!


Funny, when I looked for a picture of someone using one to put here in the blog, I never imagined I'd find a dude with exactly my hair cut . . .  ;-)