Painting Rivet Wars Minis by Wappellious

I came across this nifty video yesterday by revered painting guru James Wappel. He is the official painter for Cool Mini Or Not's Rivet Wars, which is currently up on Kickstarter.

Now, James is in the process of attaining his own Kickstarter backing for some painting DVDs, which is fantastic. It was great to get a sneak peak at how he paints, as a kind of taster for the DVDs to come. He doesn't use an airbrush either, which is refreshing to say the least!

On to the video:

Heldrake tomorrow!!

40k: For My Next Trick…

I've enjoyed my time altering vehicles for the glory of Nurgle. In fairness I haven't got a handle on the painting of them yet, but the converting has been on the money so far.

I've already converted a Forgefiend into something more gribbly. This has been the benchmark by which other projects will be compared. It has had a basic paint job to cover the grey but it needs a revisit.

The most recent addition to the Nurgle vehicle pool has been the Heldrake. This project was a real gamble – who in their right mind hacks up a perfectly good, brand new £40 model?!

Luckily, that has come through the rebirthing process with flying colours and is having painting attention lavished on it currently. Another update due before the weekend.

Not content with those two, it's time to look at the next project on the list. I was lucky enough to receive a Defiler kit for Christmas but, as I build him, I'm undecided whether to convert/paint him up as Nurgle, or save him for the Iron Warriors. In the meantime the converting machine must roll on.

I decided what was needed a few weeks back and was all set to purchase some shiny new gear. However, given I was going to give it a Heldrake-style makeover I thought I'd check Ebay for some bargains first.

Sure enough I found this bad boy and was lucky enough to bag it for just over half the cost of a new one. I picked it up from the Post Office yesterday and noticed a few things when I opened the package:
The Bolter had snapped off (no big deal); the Lascannon sponsons and assault ramp were fully articulated (awesome!); The Havoc launcher and Heavy Bolter were glued in place (hmmm). I concluded that this will make a great starting point for my new Nurgle Land Raider for Typhus and his Terminators.

The plan is to cut off the bits I don't want (spikes, icons, weapons). I also plan to take off the tank treads and replace with Forgeworld Chaos treads – can't be having any aquilla symbols on a Nurgle tank!

I will then follow the process that I used for the Heldrake – use my Dremel to texture the surface of the tank then add greenstuff elements. I will also sculpt Nurgle specific door symbols and add some fungus pipe vents, like on the Heldrake, in and around the exhausts.

I've never completed a fully painted Land Raider before, despite owning several in the past, so I'm looking forward to this.

But, before then – Heldrake painting update before the weekend!!

Thousand Sons makeover…

I always said that I was going to go back and re-work my old Bezerkers and Thousand Sons once I felt the Plague Marines were done.

I started reading the novel Thousand Sons by Graham McNeill a week or so ago and, true to form, I've been bright-lighted by the prospect of re-imagining my old tournament army. I should stop reading!

I was never happy with the models I had (above) as they were never finished. This was before the days of metal or finecast upgrade packs, so were made up of standard marines with old school TS metal shoulder pads. I ended up with 3 units of 8 marines and a sorcerer plus a Sorcerer HQ.

So what to do with them?
I never liked the blue scheme and was always drawn to the red and gold vision of the pre-heresy Sons. However, unlike the Plague Marines I will not be doing a complete army. I want to refresh the units I have and maybe get them a Rhino or two.

I found a Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons army by Proiteus on Deviant Art and it inspired me further.

Rather than just do a repaint I want to re-model the units slightly. They will still be chaos marines, but with the pre-heresy scheme. I also want to update the shoulder pads and change the heads. I am, however, torn on which direction to go with the heads…

do I go with the Kromlech Stigian heads…

or the PuppetsWar Stargate-inspired Egyptian god heads…

the Maxmini mecha egyptian heads…

or the Maxmini Steam Knight heads?

Once the units are done (and I may reduce these to two units from the existing three) I can have a look at the HQ. My Ahriman model was ok in theory apart from his zombie hand.

When researching pre-heresy HQ choices I found the above image on Litanies of Hate. He epitomises the direction I want to go in, but maybe without the non-metallic metal look. He is certainly an impressive (and intimidating) model to have as your HQ. After my Typhus conversion I feel the Thousand Sons deserve a suitably impressive Ahriman to lead them, even if their role is reduced to Allies for a larger Chaos force.

BUT, before all that can start I need to crack on with the Plague Marines. Lots more to paint yet!