Heresy Era Dark Angels Deredeo Pattern Dreadnought - TO DONE

It's done!  Well, done enough anyway.  I think I could putter and poke at these larger projects forever sometimes.  I'm super psyched to get this in the done column.  I'm one HQ model away from a completed 1000 point force for Horus Heresy (30k) games.  Now, that is a very small force for a typical game of 30k, but still represents a new achievement.  In all the years I've been doing this (and we're talking back to the mid-90's), I have never completed an army, any army.  Ever.  Odd that.  The best I did was a small Dark Angels compulsory force of 1 HQ and two troops (tactical squads) back in...6th edition?  Anyway....we're taking this 30k force to 2000 points by the end of the hobby season and possibly beyond by the end of the calendar year.

After some research among the many decal sheets in my collection, I settled on a suitable decal to represent battle honors for being a veteran of the Unification wars.  It comes from a Baneblade sheet, I think, and I cut it in half for this purpose.

An Aquila and some lightning bolts for the Emperor of Mankind.  Check!  I also put kill markings on the right leg armor (see gallery pics below).  With that, the decals were complete and it was time to finish up the highlights and mount the model to its base (which also needed painting). Vallejo Steel was used to highlight all the silver metal and top off rivets/bolt heads. Vallejo Dark Rubber was used for the power cables, and GW Tinbitz finished off the cable ties.  GW Nuln Oil was then used to shade the cables.

The base went quite quickly.  I used the air brush to spray a couple Vallejo browns on the base - first a coat of German C. Black Brown (70.822), then a lighter coat of Chocolate Brown (70.872) over the top, avoiding the shadowy parts.  Next I dry brushed the base with Khaki Brown (71.024) and topped it all off with a final dry brush of Light Brown (71.027).  The lightest color is focused around the edges and highest points of rocks, etc. as a final highlight.

The picture is a bit washed out, but I think you can get the point.  Normally, I would use a heavy coat of GW Agrax Earthshade over all.  This time, however, I skipped that step and instead went right to applying spot shades using GW Athonian Camoshade and GW Biel-Tan Green.  My goal here is to keep the base on the light side since the model is already so dark.  I don't want to over all look too dark, and this also helps the show piece model stand out on the base a little more.

After the shade dried, I pinned and glued the dreadnought in place using 2-part 5-minute epoxy. In this case, the epoxy not only provides a strong bond, but helps fill in under the feet for good contact with the textured base.

Here are a few gallery shots all around from within the light box. I'm very happy with the over all results. I believe I achieved a good mix of contrast and a balance of visual elements so the model is interesting but not too "busy" or visually chaotic looking. I'd look forward to any comments on the completed model you'd care to share.

When I have the whole force together, I'll likely come back to all of the models and add some weathering powders to get even weathering across the whole force. But for now, I'm giving myself a big old stamp of DONE.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!