DreadTober Week 4 Progress - TO DONE

 

DreadTober 2021 is coming to a close and I have completed my project under time and over budget as usual (hey, its GW, right?  This stuff is expensive...). Here's how things turned out.

The Dread is now ready to rumble.  But backing up a bit, here's how the final week went.  I had a base ready to go, but it had no paint on it. So I stuck down some Vallejo Black Lava to give some natural texture and hide the inherent 'corkiness'.

Once the Vallejo Black Lava had dried, I sprayed the whole thing with the base color (See paint recipe tab above for specifics) and let that dry thoroughly.

Next, I liberally basted on the washes.  I like to mix some green in with the brown to get a more realistic earthy look.  The battle fields of Warhammer 40K are blasted, but life clings in places.  The green is dabbed on in splotches, particularly around rocks and things where life might cling.

With that dry (and the washes take some patience there!), it was time to dry brush all the raised bits.  For a base, I like to highlight the edges of things more than the middle.  And in this case, I was light-handed with the dry brushing under the Dreadnought where things would be in the shadow of its bulk.

After the dry brushing, I painted in the individuals details, like skulls and stonework.  For contrast, I decided the stonework was the remains of something light colored and now reduced to rubble.  Pin washes were used to shade recesses of the stone work with greens and browns in addition to using GW Nuln Oil.

A trifle out of focus, unfortunately, but this angle shows the details better. Note that towards the ground, the stone work is "dirtier", blending it into the base, while the higher portions are likely sand blasted by the winds of war. With the base complete, pins were inserted in the Dread's feet and the model was glued down to the base using 2-part 5-minute epoxy. More pics of the final model appear after the break.  Here's a big ol' hobby season stamp of DONE for the completion, courtesy of 40kaddict. 

I have enjoyed the challenge this year.  I hope you have enjoyed watching the progress.  Perhaps you even picked up some inspiration along the way for your own projects.  I'll close here with a pick from six (?!) years of Dreadtober.  Don't forget to check out the rest after the break.

 

Happy DreadTober!

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

DreadTober 2021 Week 3 Progress

 

Greetings and welcome to week three of DreadTober 2021. My project is drawing to a close.  This week, I worked on the weapon options primarily.  Some decals were applied, and then I began some preliminary base construction.

The weapons look great with a full coat of paint.  So far, I'm choosing to keep them simple in a two color scheme that matches the main body (gold armor/accents over a dark meta internal structure.

Once I had the weapons completed, I worked a bit more on the light to dark transition I was looking for on the shoulders.  When I got that to as good a point as I was likely to find, I added decals from the Forge World Legio Custodes Vehicles transfer sheet.

I lightened the top third or so of the shoulder armor with thin layers of GW Wild Rider Red. Then I painted over all the red with a few thin layers of GW Casandora Yellow to even out the transitions between layers of red and to warm things back up a bit.  Ultimately, I did achieve some level of fade from light to dark on these shoulders; at least it's better than what I had last week.

With decals applied, I put some time into the base.  I started with a a thick cork sheet broken into a random shape. I glued the cork down with wood glue, then add "gravel" to blend it in with the base in general.

Next, I started to look in the bits box for fun little additions to bring things up a notch.  Some additional small rocks were added during this stage to break up the monotonous plain of the cork.

I used small Irwin bar clamps to hold things down and make sure the cork and one skull are firmly attached once the glue dries and not "floating' on a layer of glue with air pockets underneath.  I don't typically do this, but the base here is large and seemed to warrant the extra measures. Here's what it looked like after I took the clamps off.

Next, I'll add some Vallejo Black lava to the flat surface of the base (marking where the dreadnought will stand).  And once that dries, it'll be painting time.  I'll pin the dreadnought down once the painting is done, but before any weathering is added.  Check back next week to see how things turn out!  I should have the project in the DONE pile by then.

Best wishes to the many other DreadTober 2021 challengers out there.

Stay safe.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

DreadTober 2021 Week 2 Progress

Greetings and welcome to DreadTober 2021 week 2. I've been able to get a fair amount of work done on the Telemon Heavy Dreadnought.  I started off the week by washing all of the gold with GW Reikland Fleshshade.  Once thoroughly dry from that, I did some edge highlighting on all of the gold according to the paint recipe on the tab above.  Time consuming but definitely worth it.  The the red was also edge highlighted.  

I painted in the rockets as well and added some highlights to the tips.  With the Fleshshade applied, the gold has taken on a darker, richer hue.

Next up, I added silver highlights to the darker metals.  I also added more shading to the shoulder armor, attempting to achieve a gradient from light at the top to darker at the bottom. Then I got started on the two fists.

 

At this point her starts to look like a finished model and all the work thus far is really paying off. The fists got some shading and highlights to match the torso and things there are in pretty great shape. The fists still need the final silver edge highlights on the gold.

I put some Scale 75 Black Metal on the pair of Storm Cannon and that was as far as I got for week 2.  The main body and both fists are 98% complete (there's always room for more) and I've begun work on the last four weapon options.  That'll take me into week three, leaving week four to complete the base, final mounting and any last minute cleanup.  Oh, and Decals/transfers!  Can't for get that. 

 Until next week; stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

DreadTober 2021 Week 1 Progress

 

Welcome to week one of DreadTober 2021.  I started the week with a bunch of assembled, but not primed, resin.  So the first step was to clean the bits, prime them black with Vallejo Surface Primer Black (using an air brush), then get to work.  After laying down base colors over the primer, I had this to show for my efforts.

Not a bad start.  Now the brush work begins.  I started by cleaning up the red over-spray on the shoulder armor trim. Then I moved to the head so that I could get the upper carapace and shoulders finally glued down.  While I could continue in sub assemblies, at some point I wanted to get things where they belong so that I wouldn't mess up any paint gluing things down.  Also, I wanted finishes and highlights to look right and that can be tricky with painting bits separately.

Next up, I worked on the metal skeleton under the armor, including the flexible seals where the legs join the hips. Then I moved on to painting silver details on the armor.

Fancy!  Next I laid down some GW Nuln Oil over the skeleton and silver areas I had just painted. I needed time to let that dry, so that paused my progress for the week.You can see the results of the shading in the title pic above.  Here's a shot at the back, with the model propped on a paint bottle to help get good lighting for the picture.

When I sit down to the project next, I'll lay down some GW Agrax Earthshade over all the gold.  I'm not sure I'd go this way if painting this color scheme for the first time; my thoughts and techniques have changed.  But I'm following the recipe set down by previous Custodes projects so the model will fit in with the rest of the force when its complete. 

So that's where I'm at so far. I hope your projects are going well.  Best wishes to all the other DreadTober challengers out there!

Stay safe.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

DreadTober 2021 Project Kick-off

 

Image credit: https://dreadtober.blogspot.com/

Welcome to DreadTober 2021 at 262Krieg!  This year I'm painting a Legio Custodes Telemon Heavy Dreadnought from Forge World, including two of each arm weapon. And I got it built just in time to get painting.

I started the build with the legs.  I always have in mind some awesome dynamic pose when I start these projects.  And I seem to always end up with something...less.  Either I retreat to a typical static pose, or I end up with a pose akin to a stumbling drunken sailor. I'll let you decide for yourself how I ended up here. 😂

If you aren't pinning things together, it's a good idea to scribe a cross hatch pattern on ball joints (and even other areas) with a hobby knife, as I've done here.  This gives the glue something to grab onto.

Testing the Model's Balance

Here the Telemon is not glued to the base, nor has the torso been glued on.  Everything is just dry fit and free standing. I will build up a suitably interesting scene on the base for the Telemon to stand on at some point during the challenge.

I cannot get enough of magnets, so the missile launcher has been magnetized as shown here so it can be swiveled or removed entirely.  It was already cast for magnets. I doubt we'll see optional carapace weapons released for the Telemon at this point, but I'm ready! The top of the carapace isn't glued down yet, to allow me to get to the head when it's time to paint.

The shoulders and arms were also cast with sockets for magnets.  So the effort to get all the arm options set up was trivial in the extreme. 

Still standing on its own with all the armor fitted in place. The shoulder armor locks the top of the carapace in place so it won't get glued down until I get things painted to a point where the carapace lid can be permanently glue down. I may even paint the shoulders as sub-assemblies since they will be a different color from the main body.

I plan to paint this fella in the stock red and gold color scheme.  Not very imaginative but it matches the rest of my force, including a Contemptor-Achillus I painted for DreadTober 2018. I'll get to see what if anything has changed/improved with my techniques over the last three years.

I hope you'll check back throughout the challenge to see how I get on with it.

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!