Blood Angels Army Project, Converted Stormraven ftw!

[Meph]

Proof that I haven't been sitting still! The tedious, tedious job of painting the parts black has been done so now I can move on the the slightly less tedious job of painting all the details in and applying the decals.
I've hit a snag though, my airbrush broke so I've been looking around to buy a new one, and an upgrade at that. I figure that after 4 years of suing a cheap one, I can move on to something better with a budget between 100-200 Euro. I've been going nuts with searching. So many brands and types. I'm definitely going for a dual action one, but I'm still on the fence if I should go gravity feed, or bottom feed... Also, what needle diameter.. choices choices! I'm looking for something not too small as I don't intend to go for ultra-fine airbrush work, but rather that can handle some volume and large surfaces as well as work in medium-to-fine detail, as well as being sturdy and easy to use. As it's going to be a respectable buy in terms of cash, I could use any suggestion and experience any of you guys had with the 'better' brands and types of airbrushes. I'm sure I'll be able to pick out something decent by myself but any positive experiences are welcome, such as ease of maintenance, simplicity of mechanics etc etc.

[Caiin]

Is it the pistol itself or did the compressor die?

For 100-200 Euro’s you can buy a very decent pistol, but including a compressor I am not so sure. I have the Evolution (dual action) from Harder & Steenbeck which is very good quality, easy to clean and plenty of upgrade possibilities.

I find it easy to have a cup on top so you can easily fill it with paint, thin it down or mix it with other paints on the go.

As for the needles I both have the 0.15, 0.2 and 0.4 mm. The 0.2 is of most use for normal undercoating and I only use the 0.4 for big surfaces.

Good luck in finding a new airbrush!

[Meph]

Well, it's the airbrush that broke. Something on the needle clamping system isn't doing exactly what it should, and the paint flow is also severely hampered. I actually think that I might be able to salvage the thing with some meticulous maintenance but then again, the needle is bent, the trigger is wobbly and it had a good life of 5 years for some cheap-[I Swear Too Much] airbrush that came with the compressor.

After contemplating an Itawa gravity feeder I stumbled across this and was sold immediately. That nozzle just looks so wicked and seems difficult to clog up. ^^ Also, while a grav. feed seems very appealing to work with small quantities of paint, the seemingly much easier switch of suction feed seems like a bonus when wanting to switch colours quickly as you can hold a jar of water/cleaner nearby instead of having to clean out the whole grav. cup each time...

Also, it's called Badger Renegade Rage. Anything with Rage in it just hàs to be wicked.
It was 140EUR, not cheap per se compared to high-end models, but it seems very decent and sturdy.



Pwogwess!
Also, some goodies have arrived. I present to you a hunter and its prey. The plan is to have the dreadnought look like he just charged into a failed ambush. one Striking Scorpion impaled on his Assault Cannon bayonette (oh yeah, I'm going there ^^), one SR crunched in his power fist like a rag doll, and one being kicked in the chest so hard he breaks double over the foot.
That project will slowly start as well, but finishing the painting takes priority atm.

The detail painting is going well as well, the gold/bronze is painted in, the Vallejo Aluminium that makes a great silver, a few red metallic blood drops and I drybrushed bolt Gun metal on the other to-be metallic parts. The engines were first drybrushed in my bronze mix and some parts received a secon drybrush with BG metal.

Onwards & upwards!

[Meph]

Well, luckily it wasn't Finecrap, sadly it was Failcast... there was a whole frickin' model missing! Luckily the mold lines are naturally rounded off so it's clearly a miscast and not a dodgy employee with clippers.
I ordered the box from Waylandgames.co.uk , which was waaaaay cheaper than ordering from GW directly and they swiftly asked me to send it back, refund the shipping costs and get me a new box out. Two thumbs up for their service, let's just hope it gets here faster than the 3-4 weeks it took for them to ship out the first box...

And for the rest, no progress, more excuses! Some more goodies arrived, a large scantly clad female (w00h00!) and my new airbrush. I just love the way that gunmetal airbrush looks awesome and would look nicely assorted with my car in case the dash board would have an airbursh mount. ^^
I can't wait to give that brush a blast of air. But first things first, now that I'm back from a short vacation I can get back to painting. The mates and me had our annual 4-day gaming weekend in a house in the middle of nowhere for which i had to prepare and GM a 3-day Shadowrun adventure. We had a blast but the prepping ate all my painting time.

[MrBigMr]

Hey, I know that font on the case cover. Dream Scar. Nice font. Used it a few times.

[Meph]

Hah! Good find indeed. I never pass up on a good font. ^^

[Caiin]

Good to see you found yourself a new airbrush.

[Meph]

Still haven't tried it out. ^^ Although...soooon....

I'm still slowly chugging away on the Land Speeders. But sheer shock and disbelief with the silly new Stomtalon made me cough up this...

[chip6793]

This may seem like an odd comment, but with the way that your Storm Raven turned out, that Storm Talon really has no place in your army, that and the fact that it really doesn't have a place in a Blood Angels Army....

[Fireball]

but the 'rule of cool' says that you really really need to have a Stormtalon in your Blood Angels army. That's why mine should arrive somewhen today or at the beginning of next week. I know i can't use it with my bloodies in competitive play, but there's the Stormraven to fill that slot (why should i give that many points to an ability of getting BS 5, when my weapons already are twin-linked???). And we Bloodies can always use the Talon for Apocalypse games... yay!

(btw, i like the pic of that Stormtalon, Meph. Since my Stormraven has been altered at the top, i might do the same to my Talon, too. Just not sure if it really needs THAT many fins)

[MrBigMr]

Bloody... Blood Angels. First they have their Cakeraven and now they want to eat our Caketalon too. Not like I'm sporting a vanilla Marine Stormraven for Apoc games or anything... Or the fact that GW would not come out with a unit like Stormraven unless it'd find its way into every Marine codex out there.

With the typhoon launcher and a heavy bolter on the nose, you could use the Talon as a Land Speeder for regular games. I'm planning on using such a configuration as a quad rocket pod Vulture for me Guard. Perfect little Orca.

[Meph]

That C&C Orca was a better design for VTOL attack craft indeed.
Still, you can never have enough fins. Lift from wing surfaces save fuel. ^^

I'm actually not planning on buying a Stormtalon, maybe, just maybe later, on a whim perhaps but atm I've got enough on my plate to finsih. I have to constrain myself, gnnnn! One minotaur bust, two large female models, a huge dragon, a large Terminator and then there's the rest of the BA army to finish.. yaiks...

In the mean time, some progress on the Land Speeders. The end is in sight. these pictures are right after the decals and some weathering done with a little sponge. I applied some dark grey, some tin, some boltgun metal, and some light brown.
The decals might shine a bit too much in these pics as they all have a little coat of gloss varnish on them to seal them.
At the moment the models are coated in satin varnish and I'm ready for the oil paints. I decided to go with satin instead of gloss as I don't want the surfaces to be tóo slippery for the wash with oil paints.

[Meph]

So, here they are after the oil wash (mostly black, with a little bit of dark brown)and dried out. I did some small corrections using pointy cotton sticks damp with turpentine. I cleaned up some plates, the shoulder pads, gave the yellow helmets a light 'polish', etc. This really helped to brighten up some areas, and using the flat bits of the ear swabs I lightened some too-darkened areas while leaving the wash neatly in the recesses.
Now I need to seal it with a coat of of satin varnish and then I can go to work with thinned inks to add some heat distortion to engine- & weapon nozzles, and pipes. Seal it again and then some more oil paints for grease stains, seal that layer with varnish and then add some weathering powders.
Oh and I just saw i need to give the two silver areas of the crests on speeders 2 & 3 with an oil paint wash using purely black, to keep the tint of the light blue/purple wash intact.

Enjoy! C&c welcome as always.

[Meph]

Yay! The decals got printed!
[I Swear Too Much]! I already managed to frak up two of them! Maybe because it's Chinese waterslide paper, possible because of the reasons outlined below.
As you can see it's rather dark and cracked although in real life it does appear more crisp than on these photos. The dark probably comes from the fact that the white waterslides are ever so slightly transparent, probably warranting a white undercoat. And as you can see it's also cracked. But that probably comes from the fact that to try out, I just gave the decals one coat of satin varnish from a can because that was easy and fast. Also, considering the size of it, it also has to soak for quite a bit until it comes loose from the paper. Yesterday, I coated them with a second and third satin varnish and just now with a coat of gloss. This will probably seal in the ink strongly enough. I'm going to leave this to dry overnight and then put on a new decal. luckily I added those side panels 7 times per sheet I printed, so I have 5 left and can always print some more.

[Meph]

So apparently the few coats of gloss were the key. ^^

Ta-daaa!



So obviously they still need some work in terms of a few coats of Micro Sol, and the pilot's name needs some trimming. The pilot's name is a tribute to the generous Texan who sold me his pre-order extension kit for the errrr Thunder Raven!...?
There's also a request for another Texan coming onto the missile pods.

Funny how all these Texans ended up involved in a Belgian build... Must be the beer.

[Snickeye]

That is a thing of beauty....

Hats off to you meph

i especially love the warning scroll on the door

[Caiin]

Brilliant. I really like the result of the decals.

[Meph]

Long time, no reply, sorry guys! Work was rather draining the past few weeks. Anyways, 'ere it is

Decals complete! I just need to do some light touch-ups here and there. The home-printed decals are a tougher breed than their regular cousins. Days of furious stabbing and applying Micro Sol and rubbing, stabbing, rubbing, coating... still left me with the off air bubble here and there that won't go away. I already camouflaged most with some paint but the close up pics revealed some more.
But basically, this birdy is ready for weathering!

[hentaiboy]

The ship was amazing in wip, now it's umbeliveble! love the work you have done, Meph!

[Meph]

Cheers, mate! And she's not finished yet!

[Meph]

I'll take some pictures later on today or tomorrow of the Stormraven, that's received it's first weathering, but first:
Here's some progress. The speeders are 99% finished. They just need some light weathering powder and then they're done. Enjoy!

[Meph]

Here's the birdy after the first few weathering passes. Just some brown, grey,boltgun metal, and black stippled on with a little sponge, and some streaks with thinned boltgun metal. And I must say, getting nice streaks with acryllic paint ain't easy. Quickest compromise I found between look & speed is applying a thin line of the thinned paint along the edge of a plate and then, using a large flat brush, streak it backwards in one smooth go before it dries. On some parts it looks very good, on others, not so much... It'll need some adjusting and correcting here and there but I think I also can camouflage the dodgy bits with some more hand-painted detailed streaks. And once I hit that puppy with oil paints, I'm sure I'll be able to to add some nice black re-entry burn streaks using the larger metallic streaks as a base to work on.

Thoughts & comments are always welcome.

I thought to take some pics of the fully finished speeders but the weather outside is shite as usual. It's kind of annoying/scary to read here and there that this summer weather shift might be more and more frequent thanks to the Gulf Stream being pushed south because of the warming of the planet's poles...

Anywhooo

[Firebird71]

This thing is looking better by the day! I'm finding bits and pieces of inspiration for my project on here too. Only thing I'd say with the new paint is maybe tone down the metallic streaks on the front canards or maybe apply them more evenly across, but it sounds like you're already planning something for that. Looking forward to seeing more pics of these oil paints you mention!

[Lord Balok]

Meph, this entire project has moved into "totally fraking amazing" territory. I can only hope that my marines come even close when done.

[Meph]

Wow, time went fast. Sorry for the lack of replies, guys, but I'm back! Time went by pretty quickly with some holidays, busy days at work and general busy-busy.
But here's some progress. Just before going to Warhammer World in the UK last weekend I managed to finish the 2nd devastator squad. Well, finished... they need bases and two of 'm need bolters, but still. They were ready for gaming and saw some good action.



And I peeled off the masking tape on the Stormraven's cockpit. The bird's ready for oil paints now and since the cockpit seams need some dirtying up as well it seemed like the time.