Blackstone Fortress Hostiles - TO DONE

Today I bring another painting project to a close.  Nine more Black Fortress hostiles have been completed to make a total of 21 painted so far.  I have the traitor guardsmen and the heroes left to paint before calling the whole initial boxed set complete. For now, I'll be happy with a big seal o' DONE for this lot.

Next up, I'm planning to paint my Cerastus Knight-Castigator from Forge World for the Jewel of July 2020 painting challenge. The Castigator will join my other House Taranis knights. It will be fun to move on to a big model to get a break from all the little bits I've been looking at for a while now.  Mixing things up like that helps me keep the hobby fresh.

Short post today. I'll leave off with some gallery shots of the completed Rogue Psykers.

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

WIP: Blackstone Fortress Hostiles - Part 6

Hello, and welcome to Rogue Psyker week.  After finishing off the Chaos Space Marines I'm plowing forward with these last two models form the original nine I had picked out of the pile of Blackstone Fortress hostiles.  I have been looking forward to getting paint on them and so far I'm not at all disappointed.

I'm mostly following the GW art, though using my own color choices which are primarily Vallejo paints.  At some point I need to put up the various recipes for the different Blackstone Fortress models.  I have been capturing them on paper.

Not much to say here.  Basic techniques of shading and dry brushing have been used so far.  I'll start on the brush highlights soon.  I've been correcting dry brush dusting of adjacent areas as I wasn't' as careful as I could have been. I played around quite a bit with the tentacle, which I honestly didn't know existed until I was painting the arm and realized what was going on there.  I practiced some wet blending and toyed with layers of dry brush and shading.

Lots of interesting light and dark areas on these guys.

I'm still working on the faces. I like the pale possibly conjuring blues high lighted above the more ruddy natural tones of the skin when not conjuring. Right now they are too red in the mouth, but that's a work in progress.  As I bring in highlights things should get more subtle and fade in better.

All in, I'm very happy with the progress.  I expect to call these two done in time to start on the next challenge in July. With these two complete I'll just have the 12 cultists left from the original boxed set hostiles.  Then I better get on with the heroes.  If I manage it, this will be the first boxed set where I have actually painted all the models...and I've picked up A LOT of boxed sets form GW over the years...Oh...wait...I guess I did paint all the Titans from the Grand Masters edition of Titanicus!  So Blackstone Fortress will be the second painted boxed set...in 30 years....not bad!

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Blackstone Fortress Chaos Space Marines - TO DONE

Greetings!  Father's Day weekend allowed me the time I needed to really get focused on finishing the Chaos Space Marines for Blackstone Fortress.  I had a tough time sticking through those three models, but in the end I like were they ended up.

There were many highlights to finish up...and work on Obsidius Mallex's face to complete. Oh, and the animal pelt was not complete as of the last post either.  Also, I ended up with a subtle look for the right shoulder pads rather than the large eye of Horus that I'd been working on.  Now its more of a chaos-y blood red between the cracks in the armor, visible it the right side shots in the gallery at the end of the post. Oh, and there were a couple skull details on each model's armor that hadn't be seen to last post either.  So in all, there was a decent amount of work that got done over the weekend.

So that;s a big seal o' DONE for these three.  Now I'm already on to the remaining two rogue psykers from this batch of hostiles that I took on what seems like months ago.  I need to finish up so I'm ready to take on some new stuff for The Jewel of July 2020, a community challenge being kicked off for over on  Azazel's Bitz Box. As my regular readers know, I don't pass on community challenges! So come back in July to see what I take on for that challenge.

For now, I'll leave you with some close up gallery shots of the finished Chaos Space Marines.

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Obsidius Mallex

WIP: Blackstone Fortress Hostiles - Part 5

This week I continue to battle on through the Chaos Space Marines for Blackstone Fortress.  I've come to the conclusion that I really don't enjoy painting them for one reason or another.  Not really sure why exactly.  For example, during one of my painting sessions this week, I decided to spend my time cleaning up the hobby space instead of painting.  A clear stalling tactic!  heh.

I spent a little time trying out some sort of "Eye of Horus" thing on the left shoulder pads.  Not sure if it stays, but I'm starting to like it.  I'm thinking it'll get a gloss coat after the flat lacquer is sprayed on the whole model.

More highlights this week on the reds, gold trim and steel colors.  The leather belts and holsters are basically done too. I'm sorta picking away at these guys...I mean its just silly how long I'm taking to complete just three models.  But in the end I'll get them done.

 I'm working on orange "chaos' plasma here...nice to try something different.  I laugh at my self a little though.  Feels so awkward after painting blue plasma on my marines and elsewhere for so many years.

Work on the Hammer.  I'm trying a little gold inlay.  Still need to clean up a couple of the highlights, and shade under the hammer head.

The proud trio is coming along well, if slowly.  I'd like to say they'll be done next week but they have defied my every expectation so far.  I hope I do better with the chaos cultists 'cause there's a ton more of them.

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

WIP: Blackstone Fortress Hostiles - Part 4

This week I have been continuing with my project to complete Blackstone Fortress hostiles.  More paint has found its way onto the Chaos Space Marines.  I've been focused on base colors although I did do extra work on the flames coming out of the skull headdress.

It's not there yet, but I like where I'm heading with it.

I have all fo the trim colored, I believe.  I keep finding a spot here and there.

I got the reds for cloth painted in.  I'm still thinking about the animal pelt. And don't get me started on the backpack.  There is a lot going on there.

The shoulder pads need and eye of Horus bursting out.  That should be fun!

Similar treatment to the attending marines. These got a little extra oily steel metal work on armor and bolters. Still no shading anywhere yet. I did add a bit of blending on the helmet horns above.

So, progress. Still going slow as the weather improves and kids' bedtimes push back with the darkness.  Had a birthday for my oldest this week as well which took some extra time to get right in this age of pandemic.

All in all, projects continue to move forward and reach completion so I'm not complaining.  

Hope everyone is staying safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming! 

Blackstone Fortress Negavolt Cultists - TO DONE

As predicted by my last post, the Negavolt Cultists are complete. Final details, a few more highlights and a bit of cleanup were all that stood between them and a good coat of matte varnish.  They are now table ready for the next adventure into the Blackstone Fortress.

Below, I tossed up a few close ups from the light box. It's a pretty stock paint job based on the GW box art. Thought painted from my own collection of paints, a mix of GW and Vallejo primarily here.  I achieved the mix of dark, dirty, with a bit of color pop for the table that I was working towards. My style trends towards muted realistic schemes over some of the more popular crisp/bright eye popping schemes out there.

Now, I'm on to the Chaos Space Marines.  Hopefully I'll have more to share later in the week.  

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

The first four photos here got a bit washed out.  I'm taking short cuts on the photography and will work to improve on that in the future.

Also, I think these will look much better on the game board so I should be shooting some photos there instead of on the tired out grey photo mat.

Oddly, these close ups (in the same light box setup) came out far better color-wise. The iPhone picked them up better this way I guess. I'm also rocking a pretty old iPhone, relatively speaking. So I guess I get what I get...

Since they are mostly identical, just one set of each pose here.  If you have made it this far into the pictures, you've seen enough. :)

And I'll close with a close up.  I like to challenge myself with a close up since it exaggerates any small faults.  In this case, I can see how more and finer highlights, could add a lot of definition here. 

The last thing many adventurers see...