DreadTober 2025 - To DONE!

 

DreadTober has come to an end (*sniff*) and it's time to reveal the my completed project. I painted a Dark Angels 1st Company Dreadnought, a member of the Deathwing, I'm pleased with the outcome after taking some time off from painting to build lost of stuff over the summer.

I went with a fairly straight forward sarcophagus. I want to put something on the scroll, but I didn't make a decision before the time was up. I'll wait for some future inspiration to give me a name for this entombed hero. 

I used my usual red armor for the weapons and added some soot and heat damage where applicable (in my naive imagination, at least).

I did manage to remember to paint the Mechanicum icon on the engine, and added a purity seal to the rear of the armor to bring the Emperor's blessing to the power plant.

This warrior bears veteran honors and bears the 1st legion numeral. I got through weapon and armor highlights. I tried a medium mix I use for making shades/washes to seal weathering powder on the base and it seems to have clumped up as white "snow" patches for lack of a better word?  I'll probably for back and try to reactivate that somehow.  But as it stands, maybe it is ash and not snow?? It's odd...not terrible, but odd. 

I'm still adding some water effects to the pool, but here is how it stands at the end of the challenge.  The crater was deep enough, I guess, that I should have added the water effects more slowly in thinner layers, but I only left two days to complete that part and with drying time I needed more.  It's fine, but the "water" kept sinking in after drying so I've been adding layers to fill the crater. It will be fine in the end - and my be fine since I added a bit more just after taking these photos. But to be fair to the challenge this is where things left off at just before midnight on the 31st of October.  I was down to the wire on this one! SO much so that the picture were actually not taken until 11/2, when I finally made time for them and this post.

Another DreadTober in the books. Special thanks to Marc van Holst for hosting again this year.  Definitely head over to the DreadTober blog to see all the great work there. I'll end with a big seal o' DONE fo rthis project.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!!

DreadTober 2025 - Week 3

 

Greetings and welcome back!

DreadTober is drawing to a close and I have been way of my blogging game. But not so with the painting progress. This dreadnought is very close to done.  The legs are glued to the base and the arms are glued to the body.  The torso is left free for now to assist with the remaining painting.

I'm working on the highlights and cleanup now, to push this project over the finish line.

Oops, still need to paint the Opus Machina on the power plant.

As always, I had great fun with the transfers.  I would like to add more, but decided to cool it for now.

 

I wanted to strike a balance with veteran honors and typical Deathwing iconography. Honestly though, I think this veteran needs more honors to warrant the blessing of this armor.

I'm pretty close to the finish line here.  There are lots of highlights to go, and a few details to complete.  but taken in all the progress has shaped up nicely against my vision for the project.

I'm about ready to glue the torso on and lock in the final arm positioning.  Once the paintwork is completed, I'll matte varnish the whole thing, the try my hand at filling the small crater with water effects such the the skull appears to sit in a pool of water. It's just something different for my dreadnought bases.

Anyway, check back next week to see the final results. I'm confident that I'll complete this project by the end of All Hallow's Eve... 

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

 

DreadTober 2025 - Week 2

 This week I worked on highlighting the armor using dry brushing.  I then needed to clean up adjacent red and metals colors that were affected by my otherwise fastidious dry brushing technique. 😂 The I worked on the Adeptus Astartes symbol on the front armor a bit.  Not a lot of change over all, but the model definitely is settling into it's Deathwing role. Week three will have a log of cleanup. highlights to the red and metals, and transfers.

Maybe during week three I'll glue down the torso and arms - however that will wait for week four if I don't feel I have enough access on the bits that become more obscured once things are glued down. 

 Best wishes for the other DreadTober projects out there. 

Cheers and Happy Gaming! 

DreadTober 2025 - Week 1

 

Ack!  I missed an update deadline. Well it's not because I haven't been busy with my project.  Everything started out well with a successful build setting things up nicely. The I primed the model and the base, and that's where things went sideways.

 The base and twin-linked stubber went fine.  But I decided to use a satin finish rattle can that I had for the body of the dreadnought.  I liked the color for a Deathwing base and figured, what the heck. A satin finish might lend itself to shading. Welllll...that maybe.  But I wasn't thinking about managing touch ups and the like where I would not have the same base color to work with....and the finish was more than a little hydrophobic as it turned out. This last issue made base coating more than a little time consuming as I needed many thin layers to ultimately lay down a sufficient coat of any base colors.

Undaunted (OK, I was pretty well daunted, to be honest), I set about filling in a black base coat for the metals, and then dry-brushing that with a dark silver from the Pro Acryl line. This was irritating enough that I paused to complete...the base.  I don't think I have ever completed a base in the first week of a project.  but here it is...

Given the campaign against Ork Waaaghs on Piscina IV and V, Almace and the Tharsis Reach forge world, I thought is would be fun to include this Orc skull.  If all goes well, it will be resting in a pool of water when all is said and done. But I can't add the water effects until final weathering powders are applied and varnishing is done.

Ok, pissing and moaning done, I got back to the dread proper and painstakingly painted red on the various weapon casings, to match my force. This was really great fun over the satin finish I must say (NOT!).  Much cursing and ranting followed, but I remained on task.

As we often say in the hobby, "Trust the Process!".  And I did.  Things here look proper messy, but the dreadnought is starting to take shape. From here I finally painted a base coat over the armor. 

And this is where things stood by the end of the week. Tears were shed, teeth we gnashed, but in the end this Deathwing dreadnought has taken shape.  Week two will no doubt go more smoothly as I'm back to the matte finishes and color palate that I am familiar with.  For more on that, please check out the Dark Angels Paint Recipe tab above.  I am using the Pro Acryl colors on this project.

Happy DreadTober to my fellow challengers.  Sorry to miss the week two update, but it was great to see all the projects coming along so nicely.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!!

 

DreadTober 2025 Kickoff!

 

Hello and welcome to DreadTober 2025! We're ten years in, I guess, and there's going to be more DREADful projects this year.  Make a point of hitting the DreadTober link to see more about this year's projects as the month progresses. DreadTober continues to be my favorite community challenge of the year, bar none.

This year, I will be painting up a Dark Angels Brutalis dreadnought.  This veteran of the chapter served in the 1st company before taking grievous wounds on the battlefield.  Such was the valor of his deeds that  Belial himself bade he be honored with interment in a dreadnought chassis.

 

This is the third in a series of Space Marine dreadnoughts based on the modern Redemptor pattern. It's a close combat beast and should serve well among the terminators of the Deathwing as they roam the galaxy bringing the Fallen to heel.

A few past projects from 262krieg

Check back weekly to see progress on this project and do make time for the DreadTober site itself.  The challenge never disappoints! I look forward to closing out the challenge with a new family photo for the Decade of Dreads. 

Cheers and Happy Gaming!