Inquisitor Engel

Primaris Ancient This lad was actually "done" in August, but I sprayed the sealant in too humid/before the microset was fully dry and a couple of the decals on the banner peeled (never had that happen before!) so I started from scratch. I'm very happy with how he ended up. The body is from Dark Angels Primaris Lieutenant with the DA iconography removed and a couple of accessories and brass-etch added on in their place. The chest in particular I was worried about, but I think it came out well. Added a bunch of purity seals to the old command squad banner, gave him the old command squad champion sword. I used a combination of decal slices (many, many slices) to attempt to recreate the official IF banner from the supplement. While it's not perfect, I'm very pleased with the result. My virgin Legio Gryphonnicus 40k scale decal sheet gave up one of its laurel wreaths for it. Fortunately that part wasn't damaged. What do you guys think?

Hey look, terminators! I know it's been a while. I've been... busy (see below).And of course, I couldn't resist a stack-focused panorama of Sevatar and his Atramentar friends! At some point I'll actually get to use them in a game!I actually uploaded various groups of this set to my Instagram and Reddit as I finished them instead of waiting to finish the whole squad and it really did seem to help me push through and finish them all at a faster clip than I usually run at. I also like the chained skeletal hand on the lightning claw guy as well.I really ended being pleased with the super pale face on the one guy, including his purpled scars and milky eye. It's the bare head from the FW NL Praetor.Face was based white. Then covered with pallid wych flesh. Then: Leviathan purple, focused around mouth and eyes and edges near hair. Then a light nuln oil wash focused on the deep recesses and eyes. Then athonian camoshade all over. Relayered a light coat of pallid wych flesh. I took a 1:1 white to pallid highlight and a very small pure white highlight. These were FW resin kits I picked up when we bought our house TEN YEARS AGO so it feels good to get them out of the backlog and done. Most of the shoulder pads are Pop Goes the Monkey, though some are originals. I was hoping FW would do official NL pads but... they never did. I stopped adding to my backlog when my wife and I started trying to have a kid. Sold some stuff I knew was just “for fun” and focused on what I had as armies. Once we found out in September (due in June) I resolved to finish as much as I could, and focus as much as possible on the resin I had so that was out of the way. I’ll come in close. I have an Eldar Scorpion ready to be based, and then Dorn and Curze. I figure if I clean and prep them I can do them half an hour here or there and just take forever. Plastic is whatever, at least it’s easy to work with and non-toxic. I’ve made my peace with not getting to my Warhound. I’ll probably pay someone to do the cleaning and body assembly and just do the plates myself so it still feels like “mine” one day. I do need to install a lock on my study door though… There's a shot of Sevatar with all 10 of his Atramentar buddies I'm doing some stack focus editing on I'll post this week.

Thanks Pearson! I said I would do it last Friday and... a week later... here we are! Since the only model that was available for a while was the Dark Imperium Gravis captain with Power Sword and Boltstorm gauntlet, I decided to make my own. Another part of the backlog down. The pile of shame shrinks further! I took Tor Garradon as a base and did some extensive converting on where his power fist normally is, including adding a fake shoulder underneath somewhere to give support. I also clipped away his armoured tabard and replaced it with a very carefully trimmed tabard from the old (ish?) Company Command Champion chest. The two come together very nicely and his slight hunch hides the most egregious clipping. The boltstorm gauntlet and backpack are just standard aggressor parts. The shoulder pad is from the old FW Imperial Fist terminators set. I had originally planned on giving him Calgar's Primaris helmet, but with the bionic on the left side it looked kind of funky since there would be no eye visible from the front of the model. I went back and forth for a while before I ended up giving him a MKVII helmet after a reddit poll where everyone unanimously said it looked amazing, and it does. On to some Night Lords terminators, now that they're officially miniature...

Thanks all! Got one knight left! This week/weekend I think I'm starting on my Gravis captain with power sword and gauntlet for my... you know, actual Fists. that this blog is supposed to be about. :) I have learned the limit of sub-assemblies...

A third knight joins in! Since I first did my decals and design over a decade ago when the first Knights rolled out I've been really happy to see other people take them and run with them here and there. Over time, I've slowly come to the idea of them being Mechanicum aligned, but much more knightly, having only reestablished contact with the Imperium within the last few Millennia and their own culture was much more like Imperial aligned knights than Mars... because I like the way they look more. Anyway.... This has been a lengthy, lengthy undertaking. I finished the amour plates probably 2 years ago and just didn't feel like doing the frame and base. This month I really went for it to get it done, including both weapon arms. I used the cowling from the gatling cannon as extra armour on the sword arm, as it felt a little bare otherwise. Really happy with how it turned out. I have. Knight Paladin to do (using the Chaos Knight legs, because I enjoy variety) and then maybe, maybe I add some Armigers because Kngihts are really awkward to build an army out of, points wise. The energy coils on the Las Impulsor may not be as glossy or fancy OSL as some people but that's just not my style. White undercoat with eight-ish layers of Aethermatic Blue. I like how it turns out.

Custodes Telemon Magnus Catonius Archonis strides forth over the battlefield, ignoring those enemies beneath him, leaving their fates to his uninterred brothers of the Ten Thousand. I had a lot of fun with this guy, who I bought with store credit at the Warhammer Citadel after making some hard choices about my backlog and realistically getting rid of some of the NIB components of it. The Night Lord being straight up ignored (so he can get a spear in the chest from the Custodes coming in behind the Telemon) is the old school Space Marine casualty with the head removed, heavily drilled out, replaced with a FW Raptor head, an Artel W flayed flesh tabard where I covered where I scraped some purity seals off, and a MKIII backpack. I like the set piece, especially on such a large base, instead of having yet another dreadnaught have a 'tactical rock.' The rest is pretty straightforward. I am a little annoyed that the aquila shoulder decorations aren't 'level' with the ground, as I put them on prior to attaching them to the body, but I think the angle still works with the shape of the shoulders. Now, if only the FW Custodes units and the GW ones didn't get super duper weird points values making standard size lists... very hard.

In a weird turn of events, MORE BLACK AND GOLD. And the model after this will ALSO be black and gold! Not a bad way to start the year I guess. Got until June to get as much done as I can. Adeptus Custodes Blade Champion done! This was fun. I ended up putting an additional tactical rock under his foot, cutting and repositioning the arms to make him running more "forward" as the original pose kept reading as "falling forward" to me. It DID seem to work better when he's two-handing, but for the dual-wielding, this angle felt more 'stable' visually. I ended up stripping and repainting the cape 3 times this past week, he was otherwise done Sunday. Just couldn't get the colours to flow properly while maintaining the definition of the Aquila. I also ended up a little annoyed at the purple gradient on the overlap and gave it some gold filigree from the Custodes vehicles transfer sheet, which turned out nicely. Sub-assemblies (I am a whore for sub-assemblies) were legs and torso with left arm (but not sword), helmet, right arm. cape, and thigh plates separate. All in all took me a week, which isn't bad. Happy with the onward progress.

One final model to end the year! Made the mistake of spraying the shield initially in the cold and had to strip it otherwise this would have been done a couple of days ago. Galatus dreadnaught all done and ready. I also picked up a Telemon at the Warhammer Cafe today to round out that force. I also grabbed a really nice Crystal Caste case that fits the whole army with room for a little more, probably a rhino and some Silent Sisters, but that's a plan for a long time from now.

No Fists to report in the meantime. Trying to finish the resin models by June and my only resin Fist model left in the backlog is Dorn himself! My Warhound will probably not make that cut though. Did a good test fit on my Galatus dread. I forget how tall they are. I might actually have a functional Custodes force soon. Well, one capable of winning games. Who am I kidding, I kind of suck at the game part, but that may be because I have absolutely not desire to power game, and just don't really practice either? Maybe. Who knows.

Like a lot of my Forge World purchases, I've had this one sitting for a while. Custodes Caladius Grav Tank. I sort of regret doing the more yellow details on the front of it, but I think it does help it stand out a bit and the rest of it overall fits with the rest of my army, who are, barring one dread and a Blade Champion, done. The turret was looking great until the last minute when for some reason the varnish made this weird almost beaten metal look to the central piece. No idea why, as none of the rest of it exhibited this behavior, the rest of the tank as fine, the layers of paint under were fine, and it was all sealed at the same time. Super weird. I ended up doing a couple of additional layers of paint and varnish to even things out, but you can still see it in the right light. I'll live with it. Overall, a really nicely designed kit that was nice and straightforward to paint in subassemblies and put together.

Thanks Pearson! It's been a while, but I return with some other 30K stuff... Building the foundations and walls of the Imperium itself, Imperial Fists were also learned in the keys to breaking them... So I made a VII Legion Siegebreaker Consul. Since my 10-man Honor Guard squad died a couple of editions ago, a few of the various members who can't neatly be rolled into the new rules have been stripped and repurposed as new things. I enjoyed this base pose (from the Master of the Chapter) and gave him a nice resting "back of theatre command" pose using the Primaris wrist console, a MK3 Thunder Hammer, a MK4 seeker helmet, and away we went. I hate painting metal models. The detail isn't as crisp as modern plastic (or even resin) so this was actually kind of a slog. I was also experimenting with some alternative colors to reproduce my IF golden yellow look. I'm pretty pleased with the wings on the shoulder pad as well. The biggest thing that got me over the hump with this guys was *painting the backpack first*. I hate painting backpacks after everything. They seem like such a letdown after having fun perso

Thanks guys! Phalanx Warders are DONE! I've been working on these guys for a LONG time. Like, before there were plastic MKIII kits. There's quite the mix of parts as I really like variety in my squads (which is why Primaris annoy me a bit). MKIII bodies (obviously) and backpacks Some Alexis Pollux shoulder pads Imperial Fist Cataphractii Storm Shields with the arms trimmed and attached to various MKIII arms Some MKIII-ish arms from Pop Goes the Monkey, as MKIII CCW arms are quite hard to come by the these days Naturally, giant axes from FW - These smaller hands from Tartaros came in handy here. Actual chests from the Phalanx Warder kit Chests from the Templar Brethren kit (since my TB are wearing experimental MKVII) Overall I think they're really unique and MKIII sells the look of someone designed to resell boarders much better than the official MKIV. MKIII was made for void engagements after all. Last up for this group will be Rann, who is waiting for me to get some Dire Avengers and a Made to Order metal Autarch finished.

Thanks all! Yeah I'm really pleased with that Apothecary. Primaris really have reinvigorated my desire to paint yellow. Of course, before that I have to finish my MKIII Phalanx Warders... As far as I'm aware, it's very difficult if not impossible to have a flat decal to fit a 2-way curved surface (maps of earth for example), as you'd need to have pre-curved decal sheets which just wouldn't work from a printing perspective, and even then they'd only fit in a very specific location on the shoulder pads and only shoulder pads that they were designed for unfortunately. Yeah it's a bit rough. I COULD see them making decals explicitly pre-shaped to fold like FW did with a few of their custom knight decals where it's like "This goes on the knee" and whatnot, but that presents its own problems. GW seems to be going in the direction of more sculpted pads anyway, and many players are going for 3D printed pads for other chapters (or major ones sometimes!). The chapter icon shoulder pads group is dwindling! Another Custodes complete. With the Shield Captain/Valoris/Valdor down I only have a tank and a dreadnaught left and I'm DONE with this army, which is a first for me in DECADES it feels like. Okay, actually is. I wanted a model I could use as a Shield Captain in 40K, and potentially stand in for valdor in 30K and so... THIS GUY! He has no name. I hacked up Valoris Apolonian Spear and placed it atop a standard Custodes spear, then extended the haft down with some metal rod. The result is pretty darn good. I'm particularly happy with the cape and the way the golden eagle turned out, as it's rather shallow detail. I'll be honest though, this guy was NOT made for subassemblies and I hope the person that decided to put the plastic joins for the CAPE ITSELF running along flat areas rather than folding them into the creases (Cypher is a good example of doing this well). I wasn't 100% convinced on the purple inside/red outside, but I think it's come together really well. I really appreciate that GW designed the Trajann Valoris model with the option of both the GIANT FEATHERS and the massive lion. I chose neither. I was close to putting purity seals/oaths of moment where the tilting shield is, but then thought "Why would a custodes need either?" I spent a lot of time on his face, and made the helm plume white instead of red as with the rest of my Custodes so he would stand out. Anyway, really happy with the result.

Primaris marines are a genuine pleasure to paint. Though I do deeply, deeply regret choosing to go almost all white for the Apothecary... I'm really pretty happy with how this guy turned out overall though. The white is the same as the helmet on the Bladeguard ancient: Corax White > Apothecary White > Fine drybrush of Praxeti White > Edge highlight of White Scar. I did do a pin wash here and there with 50/50 water and Nuln Oil where I felt there needed to be a bit more contrast. Also, my overwhelming need to convert every single character model has.... continued. Fortunately the Narcathium from the Grey Knight Terminator box just required a new upper arm to fit standard SM shoulder pads (which is from the Sternguard kit) to be primaris-ized. Slicing and repositioning the open pistol and moving the holster's handle to the other one was a bit finicky, but it's all good now. The wonders of plastic glue.

When you absolutely, positively, have to convert every army in some way. Bladeguard Ancient from the Indomitus Captain. More Primaris... they are just... so much better than Firstborn to paint. So much detail. I'm pleased with how this guy turned out. I've taken to using Iyanden Yellow Contrast as a glaze of sorts to bring the yellow-ish colour to something closer to my older more golden Imperial Fists.