Horus Heresy - The Death Guard begin

Some time in 2006 I started working on a Pre-Heresy Death Guard army (or I guess you could call it a Great Crusade Death Guard army). I painted up a few squads (two of which picked up Staff Golden demons for me), and built roughly 1,000 points to play in the AdeptiCon 2007 team tournament.

Since that time they've really just sat back and watched a lot of other folks work their magic on the aesthetics of the Horus Heresy period, and they've certainly been waiting for me to bolster their ranks with some Forge World goodies. Well, now is that time. A few friends have started talking about doing some 30K gaming at Adepticon 2014, so I guess it's time to pull my finger out and get painting.

First on deck is this seriously cool Contemptor Dreadnought with twin Kheres-pattern assault cannons. Two Heavy 6, S6, Rending guns on an AV13 body? Sign me up.

Anyway, this guy was my first model base painted with my Badger Khrome airbrush. It was an interesting experience trying to get the highlights in the right place, and there's certainly a lot of room for improvement, but I'm very happy with how it gave me some nice indications of where to enhance shades and highlights with a brush, and some of the lovely smooth transitions.

Since these photos were taken, I've repainted the left knee-pad to match the color of the shoulders (helping to move the eye around the model (thanks Chris and the others for your insistence on this).
Of course, the firestorm-ravaged base of Istvaan III still needs to be completed, followed by plenty of ash and soot being added to the lower legs.

Until next time!

Cheers
Dave