Cypher Conversion

Here's a quick and easy guide showing how to make your own Cypher, the fallen angel, out of a bunch of regular bits.  The kitbash is based on a Dark Angels veteran robed body and adds Chaos arms (storm bolter arms from the Chaos vehicle sprue), a Chaos Warriors (WFB) sword and some more space marine and dark angels bits.  Its not 100% accurate, but hits the main points and will look good once painted up.

Deathwing Knights Tutorial

Here's the finished images of the Deathwing Knights as well as a painting tutorial and list of the paints I used. I found these guys a bit quicker to paint than the Deathwing Terminators from Dark Vengeance since there was less bare armour to paint.  I found the bone colour on flat surfaces to be the slowest, but since there was less on these guys it went quicker.

The full painting guide is at the bottom of this post.

Deathwing Knights WIP2

Here are some more pictures of those Deathwing Knights I've been working on.  The pace is picking up now that I'm past the base colours.  I have found these guys easier/faster than the regular Deathwing Terminators since there's less bare armour showing... the cloaks really help speed things up.

Deathwing Knights WIP

Here are some work in progress pics of the Deathwing Knights I converted back in this post.  I base coated them with my airbrush to skip a step or two, but otherwise they are using the same steps as the Deathwing Terminators from the Dark Vengeance box.

Dark Vengeance Complete

After much distraction and delay, I have completed all of the miniatures that are included in the Dark Vengeance starter set.  I have made tutorials for everything except the second set of cultists (coming when I get time).  This was a fun set to paint since there are so many different things and not too many troops to get bored with.  You should be able to see all the posts by using the "Dark Vengeance" label.

Deathwing Knights Conversion

Here's a video where I show up to make the most out of the Deathwing command squad box.  I built the regular command guys and then used the remaining Knight bits along with the Terminators from Assault on Black Reach to make up a squad of Deathwing Knights.  I could have done it the other way, but I wanted the Command Squad to have all the ornamental Deathwing bits on them.  You could also do this using the Deathwing terminators from Dark Vengeance, just use them as your command squad and build the Knights fully from the box.

Deathwing Command Squad Unboxing

I caved again... well, sort of.  I wasn't sure if I was going to try and collect a Dark Angels Army, but with the stuff I've finished from Dark Vengeance it looks like that's where I'm going... so I picked up the Dark Angesl Command Squad box.  I went through my bits boxes and found lots of terminators that I can use with the extra bits to make up some extra squads.  I really like the idea of doing a deathwing deepstrike and shooting the enemy apart all in one go.  Seems like a cool list, but we'll have to see if I can make it work.

Here are some pictures of the contents.

Sammael (finished + tutorial)

Here's the other half of the Ravenwing tutorial... well, both are complete tutorials, but they are basically the same.  Neat model, but lots of points, so I'd want to have a full Ravenwing force to use him... which I don't think will happen because I don't really like to paint bikes.

Anyway, here's the video and pics... painting guide is at the bottom.

Ravenwing Bikers finished

Here's the Ravenwing bikers I've been working on.  I did the black with some mixing of grey and black for the base, grey highlight, then black wash to finish and blend.  Everything else has pretty much been covered with my other Dark Vengeance tutorials.

Full list of paints and a guide at bottom of the post.  I'll be posting the Sammael tutorial soon.

Ravenwing WIP 2 (Sammael + Bikes)

Here's a second batch of pictures from my Ravenwing detachment.  I'm doing all the base coats first, then will give a quick grey highlight and black wash.   When I did the base coat I added some grey in, so hopefully the black wash gets the recesses a deep black and the flat surfaces stand out slightly.  I'm also using secret weapon mini's soft body grey for the grey panels.  I'm not sure if I would rather that they were a blue grey, but we'll see.

Ravenwing WIP (Sammael + bikes)

I've decided to add Sammael in with the bikes from Dark Vengeance since they'll be the same paint scheme... plus with the new Dark Angels book on advance order it seems like a good time to do him.

2012 Year in Review

Ok, so I guess its that time of year to look back and see what I accomplished in the hobby during 2012.  Outside the hobby world it was a busy year for me... I finished up my master's degree, switched jobs, moved to a new town and had some excellent vacations.

Deathwing Terminators Finished

Here's the Deathwing Terminators from Dark Vengeance all finished.  I've done up a better version of the painting guide and included the images below.  Hopefully this makes it better for people trying to follow my tutorials.  Check out the images below.  The full painting guide is below the finished images, and are the same as what's in the video.

In other news, I set up a new photo booth in my painting room, so I should be able to improve the quality of my images going forward (of finished models anyway).

Deathwing Termintaors WIP 2

I've had a hard time getting to my painting table on a regular basis, so these guys are taking longer than expected.  The layer of redoing the white armour was quite slow, almost an hour each guy.  Now that its done things should pick up an one more sitting should finish these guys off.  I really like the warm colour of the armour, so I think its worth it.

Deathwing Terminators WIP

Here's the latest in the Dark Vengeance series... the Deathwing Terminators.  I've got to finish this stuff up soon because I have a lot of stuff to get done before Christmas and have also ordered the Hobbit game.

Dark Angels Tactical Squad Finished

Here's the finished Tactical Squad from Dark Vengeance.  I've bee pretty busy lately, so have had a hard time keeping up with my usual pace of painting.  I'm working on the squad of cultists with ranged weapons now.

Dark Angels Tactical Squad WIP 2

Here's the second set of pics of my Tactical squad.  I had a question about the greens from last post, and the basic answer is to water down paints a little and use glazes or washes to tone down the start highlights.  Or you can mix the darker green with the highlight to tone it down from the start.  It all depends on how you like them to look, and how much time you want to spend on a particular guy.

Dark Angels Tactical Squad WIP

Here's some pics of the Dark Vengeance tactical marines.  They are a slight improvement from the Assault on Black Reach box set, but will be pretty poor compared to the rumoured tactical squad re-cut thats supposed to come out next year.  I started these guys out with a green spray paint to make the green base coat go faster.  Paints listed at the bottom of this post.

Dark Vengeance Librarian Finished Tutorial

Here's the final pics and video tutorial for the Dark Angels Librarian Turmiel from the Dark Vengeance box.

Dark Vengeance Librarian WIP 2

Here's another batch of WIP photos of Librarian Turmiel from the Dark Vengeance box.  The force sword is going to be a little different as I'll be using a non metallic gold type colour for the inset design.  The XV-88 base colour is what I'll be using and the other Tau colours for highlights.