Some Hobby progress to the smell of pizza and varnish.

I know I said that I'd show off the rest of the finished Valhallans in my last post, but I recently finished these new minis and I couldn't help but show them off.

 

This guy has been sitting on my to-do list for well over a year and this morning I finally sat myself down and decided to add the finishing touches to him. It wasn't as much as a chore to do as I thought he was going to be and I actually felt proud of myself when I finished off his face.

 

With this guy done I have only one other Deathwatch mini left to do and then I can consider them all complete.

 As with the other Deathwatch members this guy has his backpack and wrist magnetized so I can switch between different loadouts. I'll need to make up a jumpack for him and the other kill team members at a later date.

I've spent alot of my weekend working on these guys and I couldn't be any happier with them. I wanted to just post pics of these guys up without anything to say, so I wrote some fluff based on the characters from the audio book that they're based on. The only exception to this was the test mini below.

I managed to paint up a new arm for this guy and added a combat knife to him. I'm pleased with how he's turned out and will definitely be using the same techniques for the rest of the Red Marked. 

"We know you too well my pugnacious brother. Patience is not a virtue for you is it?"

 Dubbed as a marksmen, Venator hailed from the planet of Konor where he was recruited to join the XIII Legion. Often ranging ahead and marking targets for destruction, Venator proved invaluable in the Red Mark's quest to purge the traitor elements leftover in the wake of Lorgar's Shadow Crusade.

 

 "You sound concerned brother. There's no shame in adversity."

 Bracius was the assault weapon specialist that fought alongside Thiel during the purging of the 500 worlds and was often seen as a stalwart and inspiring warrior amongst the ranks of the Red Marked. While viewed as a harsh taskmaster during training exercises, Bracius was also a cheerful soul seeing adversity as a welcome challenge to be overcome.

 

 "At least those b*****ds are dead."

 A stern and uncompromising individual, Envelio was Thiel's vox specialist and was often at odds with the intrepid warrior's decisions during the early days of the purging of the 500 worlds. Though often dour in the face of uncertainty, Envelio proved himself to be adaptable and resolute in the face of ever-changing situations.

 

"Now we fight. For Primarch and Emperor. For the lost sons of Calth and for those yet to be born on Macragge. This is your hour brothers. Banish shame, banish doubt, banish anger. Show these traitors what it is to be an Ultramarine!"

 The intrepid leader of the Red Marked, Thiel was instrumental not only in the cleansing of the 500 worlds but in the opening hours of the Battle of Calth and several engagements of the Underworld War. His tactical approach to warfare inspired his Primarch, Roboute Guilleman to rewrite the operational tenets of the legions into the chapters which would hold the Imperium together not only through the rest of the Horus Heresy but centuries after its conclusion.

 Lastly a look at one of my upcoming minis to join the rest of the Red Marked. A banner bearer I made using parts from the Betrayal at Calth Chaplain, tactical marine parts, some forgeworld parts, an anvil industries drum mag and a Venerable Dreadnought banner.

 I'm looking forward to painting this guy up and I've already got a design sorted for the banner that will hopefully represent the Red Marked, Imperium Secundus and the XIII Legion.

Some side projects and more

 Well I've been busy with alot of side projects as of late and thought I'd share them.

 With the announcement that Spartan Games would be releasing a tabletop miniatures game based on Halo and the recent coverage at Salute 2016, I decided I would take my mini Master Chief from the Halo 4 Cortana action figure and base him in preparation for the release of Halo: Ground Command.

 I bought myself one of the old metal Chaos Warrior champion models. This one is the Nurgle champion. I've already decided on naming him Morris Nigarack or as he's now known as "Black Death", so I'll be painting him in a dark greenish almost black colour for his armour. Also because I just can't help but make things more interesting for myself, I've magnetized his head so I can switch out an alternate one to represent whether he's wounded (if I ever play AOS at some point).

 This was another little side project for my friend Myk Pilgrim, it's from a Cthulhu based card game and he wanted it to be painted up as a form of rock statue.

 Not contempt with making the heads removable for my Horus Heresy marines, I decided to give my Iron Warrior mini and alternate mutated arm. Part of me would like to be able to use him as a character for Black Crusade (Fantasy Flight's Chaos Marine RPG).

 I've decided to dive into making a playable force for 30k based on Black Libarary's audio drama "Red Marked". This marine is the test bed for the colour scheme and techniques I'll be using across the whole force. At this moment in time, his left arm has gone missing and I can't find it meaning I'll need to make him a new one :(

 Just to show it's not all Space Marines all the time from me, I present to you my recently finished Valhallan Sgt and Flamer trooper. I've had these guys lying around for a while and wanted to get them finished so I could throw them in with the rest of their squadmates (will try get a picture of all them together next time)

Of Space Marines, Xenos and eventually men... of metal and plastic

 Well while I've been busy with real life and all that jazz, that doesn't mean I've been idle on the hobby front. On the Deathwatch side of things I've been able to scratch alot of things off my to-do list including a few more Kill Team members as well as a Watch Commander model.

As with all of my previous Deatwatch models, the Ultramarine and Marauder have been magnetized, allowing me to switch their loadouts.

 In addition to finishing some new members, I also managed to go back and work on some of my older models as well. I had some issues with the Dark Angel Librarian and decided that his sword arm needed to be reposed to a more relaxed angle.

 With my Watch Commander model I wanted to do something different, rather then have him be a founding chapter member I thought it would be interesting to make him a Successor chapter member, but one with a more interesting colour scheme. To that end I chose a chapter whose lineage I was not completely sure of (although they're probably Ultramarine sucessors now), I chose the Howling Griffons.

I also chose them because I wanted to take a crack at freehanding their Chapter logo, the infamous Griffon. I think it worked out really well and I'm pleased with the overall result.

With these members done my Deathwatch are starting to turn into a more sizeable force, and if the recent release of Deathwatch Overkill, the rules to use those models as a unit in 40k and rumours of a potential Codex in the future, I might be able to use them on the table top at some point and not just as display pieces.

Aside from the Xenos hunters, I've also been working on some foul Xenos for them to hunt after. I entered a character painting competition at my local Games Workshop and decided that rather than use a pre-exisiting mini (which I was allowed to do btw), I felt I should enter with something different. After a quick trawl through Ebay I managed to come across a metal Dark Eldar Mandrake model.

 

I've always wanted to paint one of these since I first seen them in White Dwarf after the Dark Eldar got their new codex and felt that they were a cool element of the pointy eared slavers forces. They always reminded me of one of the characters from the Legacy of Kain (mainly the mysterious blue dude that looks a bit like a Protoss reject) and after reading the World Bearers Ominbus not too long ago where they encounter a Mandrake who I imagined did the teleportation trick ala X-Men's Night Crawler (Bamf!), I knew I just had to paint one up. After deciding on the colour scheme, I realised I wanted to base him as though he were prowling the streets of Commorragh as well as provided some interesting details such as OSL from the flames in his hands as well as his eyes. The detailing for the underside of the skull was a cool little test in detail work and gave me an excuse to ask my Medical Artist, girlfriend for advice.

After looking through my bitz boxes recently I found that I have alot of leftover metal minatures, mainly Imperial Guard ( I refuse to call them Astra Mila whatever they call them now) and took the time to base them all. However they will have to go on the back burner as I have more pressing projects to work on.

*Edit
However there is one other project that I did finish that is not 40k related and that is a miniature for my good friend and aspiring fiction writer Myk Pilgrim. You can check out his writing blog as well as his musings on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.