Squaduary 2017 Weeks 3 and 4

Image Credit goes to Stepping Between Games

Greetings,

It is time for my next installment of Squaduary progress and I'm well overdue.  A week-long business trip killed week 3 so this is the progress I've made since returning and plowing into week four with a fury.  As you will see, there is plenty left to do, but at least the squad is clearly identifiable as Deathwatch space marines now!

Upon returning to the project I dove right in, basically following the approach outlined on the Warhammer TV painting tutorial below.

I have found Duncan's painting tutorials very accessible and a great source of easy inspiration.  As you'll see when I post my final paint recipe, I don't adhere to all GW paints and instead use a variety of brands - still, it is nice to have a place to start!

So after the first two sessions back, the weapons and a couple other details have been addressed. I got the gold on the many of the icons while I was at it.  The squad is now taking shape.  Below is a close up of the storm shield work.  Very rough work on the screen since it is almost entirely hidden when mounted on the Blackshield space marine.

In the next session this week, I continued to build on the details, completing the icon work and hitting the leather bits.  At this point there is still a lot of final highlighting planned, but I wanted to get everything to a decent standard by the end of the challenge.  If I can't finish, I'll just have the final highlights to do, but the squad will be easily at a solid tabletop standard.

Last night I managed to clean some bits up, tackle the right arms with scanners/computers on them, and hit up the various oath scrolls and other parchment. The scrolls need text and final highlights, and the servo skull needs more cleanup and final highlights as well.

So...not out of the woods, but great progress so far!  After the needed clean up on last night's work, I will dive into the right shoulder pads and get all the chapter iconography right. Then after a last pass to be sure I didn't miss any important details I'll finish off the bases. At this point i believe I have enough session time to complete the project by the 28th, but I may very well be working right up to the very end of the night!   

I have enjoyed watch this squad take shape. I find it hard to visualize primed space marines morphing into their final form, but as the work continues it is very cool to see it all work out. It has been especially hard with the Deathwatch for me....it seemed  like they were nothing but black forever! 

For my next post I'll have final pics of the squad in some scenic terrain, likely next to their new ride which was completed before them. I'm planning a second follow up post with the paint recipe I used and some more detail about the process/techniques I used for this squad.

Best of luck to all of the other Squaduary challengers out there. 

Cheers and Happy Gaming!