All the best of the season!

Well, we're finally in the thick of the holiday season. I'm lucky enough to have just over a week off work and once you take out the family commitments and a trip or two to the movies, I should have five days or so to get a ton of hobby stuff done!

I have three commissions to work on, plus my British Peninsular War army (see my first unit in the pic below), plus getting started on my Rapid Assault Force (the one you all chose as my next Blood Pact Project).

So no real time to be mucking around. I will, however, try to take as many pictures as possible as I go through it all.

Anyway, have yourselves a good and safe holiday season. Look after yourself and your loved ones, and don't eat too much!

Oh, and my Christmas present to myself arrived early. I think after Adepticon in March I'll be really getting stuck into getting him painted up as one of the Reavers from Legio Invicta (from Titanicus by Dan Abnett). : )

And the Winner is...

The Rapid Assault Force!

No real surprise there. The "Bats" have captured the imagination and will be next on deck for the Blood Pact. Another lunchtime chat with Thomas is in order.

Thanks to everyone who voted, especially for all those who voted for the Ground Assault Force that was really left in the dust. One day I'll get to it. One day ; )

In the meantime, here are a couple of shots of something else I'm working on.

The two front legs on this one will be bionic.

Working with the Bell of Lost Souls

Hi guys

Recently, Bigred from Bell of Lost Souls and I have been chatting about a few "guest tutorials" on the BoLS site. I've kind of decided to put together one a month to post up there, and the first one has just gone live. You can check it out here.

I've had quite a few requests to talk about how I paint the Chaos Stars on my vehicles, so this is the tutorial. It's nice and straightforward, I hope you like it. In a month or so I'll repost it here.

In the meantime, welcome to all those who are new to my blog, visiting from BoLS!

I leave you with this, the latest commission I've started work on.

And so the Indoctrination Begins!

So my wife spends a bit of time online at a forum about babies. On this forum they organized some fun, holiday gift-giving. My wife's online buddy sent her a package with three gifts. One was for my wife, one for my daughter, and one for me (well, they're all really for our daughter, but hey...)

The present labeled for DH (Dear Husband in the forum shorthand) contained the "onesie" you see above. Too small for me, but just right for my daughter ; ) It certainly made me laugh.

Make sure you have just as much fun this holiday season!

Cheers

Dave

Painting Purple.

A few posts back I showed you a Pre-Heresy Lucius, Fabius, and an Emperor's Children Standard Bearer. I added a few pieces of greenstuff work and here's Lucius painted, descending stairs, his paired swords held ready to skillfully deal some death!

I tried to match a blend of the Sam Wood artwork from the Horus Heresy Artbooks, the Lucius the Eternal miniature (note the black studded gauntlets), elements of the Fulgrim I worked on, and a couple of new ideas. Most notable are the signature Emperor's Children wings on the shoulder pads of Lucius and Fabius.

I could have used the Dark Angels Commander wing that I used on Fulgrim, but I wanted something different, still stylish, but not the same as their hallowed Primarch. I glued a feather from the Empire Foot Soldiers sprue to the shoulder pad and then built up the EC wing symbol from greenstuff. Once painted, I think it adds a certain opulence.

And as it looks like the Rapid Assault Force will take the prize as my next Blood Pact Project™ (unless, of course, the Ground Assault Force can garner 170+ votes over the next six days)

I figured that sitting down to lunch with Thomas would be a great idea. Here's a shot of the initial "sketch" of a Locust vector fighter we'll be building making heavy use of the Space Marine Drop Pod wings.

What project is next?

Hi guys

I know I've been slacking on the Blood Pact recently, but there's been quite a bit of commission work lately. It has certainly helped paying for daycare : )

So, in order to get them up and going again I have a poll running on the right hand side. The question is, which project should I work on next for my Blood Pact. The options are:

Artillery Battery

- FW Minotaur

- FW Colossus (Bombard)

- Quad Launcher Battery

Rapid Assault Force

- FW Hellblade (to be used as a Vendetta)

- a few stands of "Bats", small Chaos vector fighters that will be used as Vendettas (two to a stand)

- three squads of either Storm Troopers or Veterans in carapace armor.

Armored Assault Force

- Stormlord (conversion done prior to the new kit, from new Baneblade body)

- Squad of FW Renegade Ogryns

- Shadowsword or Baneblade.

Head on over to the poll and let me know what you think I should work on first.

Cheers

Dave

Before the fall...

I've been working on a commission for my client that ordered the Fulgrim I recently created.

This trio of characters are also for his Pre-Heresy Emperor's Children collection. The conversion work is about 75% complete in these photos (95% complete at the time of posting) and I hope to have them finally sorted this weekend so that the painting can begin.

If you have a copy of the Horus Heresy artbooks (or the compilation) you can find the inspirational pieces of art by Sam Cook. See if you can guess who they are.

A quick update

Busy, busy, busy.

Lots of stuff going on lately, work is going well and my daughter is growing like a weed.

I've also had a spike in commissions, about which I'm certainly not complaining.

Anyways, here is one of the latest pieces I've finished, a vicious Chaos Lord of the Night Lords Legion. I had fun painting the lightning strikes and the "old school" legion symbol on the shoulder pad.

I hope you like him.

Cheers

Dave

My first Primarch - Completed

When I was approached in August to convert and paint a Fulgrim in the style of Chris Borer's Slayer Sword-winning entry from the 2007 Chicago Golden Demons, I knew I had my work cut out for me.

I spoke with Chris to make sure it was ok with him for me to create this homage. He replied by reminding me, he had drawn inspiration from the John Blanche and Sam Cook artwork in the Horus Heresy artbooks, and gave his blessing. And so it was that the project began.

I knew I'd feel good about the model if I put my own spin on things. So, taking Chris's model as the guide, I tweaked a few elements to give it my own flavor. I also mounted him on a base from Dragon Forge's Ancient Ruins line. By adding a few spikes and roll of razorwire I was able to keep reasonably close to Chris's original vision.

I hope you like him. I know my client does, he has already commissioned a Lucius and a Standard Bearer.

I have quite a few commissions on my plate right now, that means you'll get to see some quite interesting stuff over the coming months.

Cheers

Dave

The Family Album

Over the past few weeks there have been quite a few folks asking to see an entire army shot of the Blood Pact. Well my photography skills aren't quite up to it yet, so here are three seperate photos showing the Vehicles, Infantry, and Apocalypse-only models I've completed so far for theis project that will continue growing over the next year or so.

First up are the Vehicles. From left to right, Back: 2 x AT-70 Reavers (count as Leman Russes), 2 x Usurpers (count as Medusas). Front: N-20 Flame Halftrack (counts as Hellhound), 2 x N-6 Transports (count as Chimeras).

Here are the Infantry: Company Command (incl. Standard Bearer and Officer of the Fleet), Psyker Battle Squad, 2 x Penal Legion squads, Platoon Command (including 2 x flamers and a heavy flamer), 3 x Infantry squads with plasma gun and autocannon, Infantry squad with meltagun, Heavy Weapons squad with three missile launchers.

And my big boyz: The Stalk Tank, Valdor, and Malcador.

One day I'll have them all out on the table at once (with many more reinforcements) and I'll shoot the hell out of them, with my camera that is ; )

Have fun!

Cheers

Dave

Back from the Wild West!

So I've only mentioned it a few times over the past couple of months, but this past weekend I traveled west to Phoenix to play in the Battlefoam Wild West Shootout 40K Indy GT. I was lucky enough to be a guest of Romeo and the Battlefoam crew, which meant that after flying me out there Romeo picked up from the airport, along with the other guests, Scott and Chipley (and their significant others) from 40K Radio.

From the moment we (the guests) arrived on Friday we were treated right and given a tour of the Battlefoam facility where we got to see a couple of new products in the works, and the mighty piles of cut and uncut foam!

We then stopped for some dinner, and then headed over to Empire Games in Mesa, the host store for the event. As soon as you approach the store it becomes incredibly obvious that the manager of the store used to run a pretty big GW store (the LA Bunker to be precise). Kyle has really pushed all the ideas of a GW Bunker to their next level. The picture above says it all.

Empire Games carries a larger range of GW items on the shelf than any GW store in the country, plus a bunch of boardgames, Flames of War, Warmachine, Hordes, cards, paints and hobby accessories, and a range of Battlefoam bags. All this product surrounded the more than 50 GT players and dozens of onlookers without the store feeling crowded or too funky. Pretty cool really.

Anyway, on to the tournament itself! On Saturday (after waking up at 4:30am local time, stupid time zone change) I registered for the event and proceeded to my first table where I played against Jason Witt and his Space Marines. I've known Jason for a bunch of years and he's a very strong 40K player, so I didn't hold out much hope for my success in the game. It was a modified Kill Points mission (most units counted as 2 KPs) and although I thought I had a pretty sound strategy I lost the game 16 Kps to 2. It was, however a great game and fun to learn the strengths and weaknesses of my choices.

Game Two was against Ken Riggio (above). Ken posts on DakkaDakka as AbsoluteBlue, and has been working on a Vraksian Renegade army over the same time I've been building the Blood Pact. Ken was there with his gaming buddies Ryan, Shaun, and Pat (Shep, Gitmack, and Somnicide respectively on Dakka) and was fielding one of the three IG lists there, Ryan had the third. I was worried when I saw the wall of steel in front of me. Eleven vehicles - three Hydras, four Chimeras, two Devil Dogs, a Demolisher and an Executioner. As the scenario was objective based (grabbing the objective and running off the opposite table edge with it) we both kind of settled into pounding the crap out of each other. The game was a lot of fun, but ended in a draw.

Game Three was against Dean Vuckovich and his Dark Angels. Dean helped me out in '08 by running the LoTR component of the Las Vegas GT, so it was great to catch up with him again.

The mission was right up my alley, an old school victory points game with a spearhead deployment and table quarters worth 250 VPs. After some of my lucky shots early in the game, Dean struggled to come back. Another fun game, and a victory for me!

I stayed up late on Saturday night, grabbing a few beers with the Battlefoam and 40K Radio crews. Unfortunately it didn't help me, I woke up at 3:30 a local time.

Game Four was the surprise mission! Another VP mission, but taking into account our location in the desert, the table was cleared of all terrain. I think my opponent was a little worried about the lack of terrain, but he needn't have worried. Joel Reyes (who's father placed 2nd overall) plonked down his Nidzilla army and proceeded to surgically tear my army limb from limb. After he seized the initiative with his six Carnifexes and his outflanking Genestealers ignored my Officer of the Fleet I had lost 50 men and two tanks before my first turn. Although I avoided being tabled by two models (Pater Sin and one of his charges) I took down 1000 points of Joel's army before losing.

Game Five was a Seize Ground mission with five objectives. Instead of facing something I've played against before I got to play a Chaos Daemon army. Chris Saraga and his son Dante had traveled all the way from Chico, CA, to play in the GT, their third for the year. Chris's army was tough to contend with, two Soulgrinders, a Bloodthirster, Bloodletters, and Bloodcrushers in the first drop. Luck swung back and forth throughout the game, but favored Chris when it came to rolling saves for his Greater Daemons, his Bloodthirster making more 5+ saves than I had dice to roll. After another fun game Chris was victorious, three objectives to one.

So there it is, I finished the weekend at 1-3-1, and won Best Painted! Very exciting as Shaun Hausmann (Gitsmack) brought a fantastic looking Ork force that picked up Player's Choice!

A great weekend, and an event that I'm sure will grow over the coming years. Kudos to Romeo and the Battlefoam team, Kyle and the Empire Games crew, and the many gamers who traveled from near and far!

Over the past few weeks I've been slaving away on getting the vehicles built and up to spec on their paint jobs so that I could debut the Blood Pact. Here are the command squad Chimera and the Hellhound. Enjoy!

Cheers

Dave

Quick update from the Indy GT

Hi all

Just a quick late night update from Phoenix and the Battlefoam Wild West Shootout. I'm in a place of great "balance" right now with a record of 1-1-1. Hopefully I can keep that balance tomorrow. Three fun games, the first a loss to Jason Witt's Space Marines, the second a draw against Ken Reggio's Traitor Guard (with 11 vehicles!) - Ken has been blogging here about his Vraks renegades - and a victory over Dean Vukovich's Dark Angels.

Lots of fun being had, not much sleep though as I'm still waking up on east Coast time : ( Perhaps tomorrow will be different.

Cheers

Dave

PS. Very excited! Not a single damaged model as my army was transported across the country (through the hands of at least four baggage handlers) in the Battleform P.A.C.K. 1520!

Talk about busy!

So I've managed to burn the candle at both ends getting stuff ready for the Battlefoam Wild West Shootout Indy GT this weekend! I'm flying out on Friday evening, so I figure I can sleep on the plane. No more posts until after the show. I just have too much to finish off.

Anyway, on to the five key points of tonight's post:

1) The AT-70 Reavers. After seeing the tank built by Rabidchild on his blog (Pick a Damn Army, new to my blog roll) I decided to run with a smaller turret than my Ragnarok turret. Here are the two tanks as they stand right now.

For maximum transportability and flexibility, I magnetized the lascannon, the cupola hatch, and the battlecannon. In the future I'll build out some different guns for the turret, and different hatches as well.

2) The Usurpers. There was a good reaction to my Usurpers, so I thought I'd show you the painted pieces! I've gone with the same color scheme I used on my Valdor and Malcador, Dark Flesh with Khemri Brown/Bleached Bone icons.

After seeing the M7 Priest model from the Flames of War range I saw that the shells were placed vertically in cases on either side of the rear of the crew compartment. On my Usurpers I had to turn them around and lay the shells horizontally. In the picture below you can see the rear of four shells nestled in their storage, just ready to rain death down upon the worshippers of the Corpse God.

3) Commission - Fulgrim. I still squeezed in some time on my Fulgrim commission. He is so very close to completion with just a few more details. The cloak has given me plenty of trouble, but it is almost there. Just a little more time...

4) Mantic Games. A friend of mine who is the Sales Director (or something similar) for Mantic Games was in town this weekend for a trade show, and he dropped off a few sprues of the new Mantic Games Elves on my desk. I guess after the weekend I'll be starting on painting these guys up. You can find out more about Mantic and what they're up to on their blog, also new to my blog roll!

5) Blogs! There have been another recent spate of new blogs and I'm just getting around to checking them out. I have also added my mate Anthony Reynold's new blog to my blog roll, and there are probably many more to come. Keep an eye out for them as I add them.

Well there you are, another week, another looooong post. Wish me luck for the tournament, I haven't played 40k since last November ; )

Cheers

Dave