Craters and Dreadnoughts

 We have had a wild ride so far at the start of the year.  Lot of medical and business issues with my surviving parent put writing this post out of my mind.  But better late than never.  I have two new items to display on my blog.  

First thing is my craters.  I actually finished these a while back, and now I am going to put them up for display:

I used plaster as the form of the actual crater, painted them up using the paint formula from Hirst Arts on earth tones, and then gave them a wood stain finish.  I like the look and I think that it will last for quite a while.  

I also finished up a dreadnaught for the most part.  It is still missing the varnish, but that is something that will come later when I have better weather here in a few weeks.  I included the older squad of tac marines that I already have done for a family photo.  

I finally found a company that can do what seems like good squad markings for Crimson Fists.  I am still testing them, and finishing off the last of the marines in the new squad.  Little by little this squad will be finished.  I also have a scout combat squad that is currently being worked on, as well as one of the Ork squads from last year that I have been working on.  They are on the back burner right now but still actively getting paint on them from time to time.  

Long Time Coming in an update.

Alexa, how do you spell Negligence.  Sorry folks, you should know by now that real life got in the way of things.  Nothing too important, just the usual elderly mom being a lot to handle with little time to do any hobby stuff let alone blog about it, and when I do, I tend to get into a perfectionist loop of always trying to fix problems that I see.  That also does not include accidents.  I did have one full squad almost done but then I ruined them when an errant paintbrush went across them and ruined my paint job.  I also don't like to post pictures that are WIP usually.  I like to showcase what I have finished.  On the other hand, a PLOG may spur me to paint more if I start posting WIP's.  

Good news is that I am almost done with most of a full squad and my dread from way back when.  I cant use spray paint right now as the pollen is getting thick, so I am going to give them any final touch ups that I have to do and start with the decals on them.  Hopefully they will be ready for the varnish before May is here.  Anyways here is what I have so far:

I fully expect to have a lot more pictures once the varnish is on.  The three not pictured had a few problems that I could not fix and had to give them the old "Simple Green" bath for them.  I expect to have them as well as a Devestator squad done soon.  

Lockdown Painting

 As many of us are now confined to our quarters until further notice, I have noticed that a whole lot of us in the hobby of miniature soldiers suddenly have time to work on their hobbies, which you can honestly say that for just about most other hobbies.  I would consider myself to be part of my group as well, since about half of my extracurricular activities involve being out among people.  With that in mind I have been working on my backlog of Crimson Fists that need to get painted.  I finally was able to finish my first squad of these all the way to placing decals and applying a hard coat on them.  I learned a lot about painting in general, as well as painting space marines, once again while completing these.  Lot of the mistakes that I did on these, I expect to not do again.  I actually got these done last month, it was only now that I was able to get some pictures of them.  Without further ado, here is my first Space Marines completely finished and coming to a table top near me.(whenever the hell we open up again)

Combat Squad A

So I had some trouble with the hard coat while finishing these guys up.  You can tell the two on the left are a little "frosty," whereas the two on the right came out like I wanted them.  The Sgt came out ok, but I think that I frosted his hand a little bit.  

Combat Squad B

I am not going to be anal enough to specify which model goes in which combat squad, but this is the other half of the squad.  

Regular Tactical Marines

Tactical Marines with Flame Thrower

Tactical Marines with Missile Launcher

Some close ups of them in groups of three.  

Some pictures of my Sargent.  I had the hardest time getting the face just right, and that is what I had to re-learn a lot of while doing this one.  Had I got him right the first time, this post would probably be a month or two old by now.  

Family Photo

This is a group shot of the whole squad.  While I am happy with the painting that I did on most of these models, I have some issues with the models themselves.  If you notice, they are AOBR marines which will work in a pinch, but leave something to be desired when it comes to some of the details on the model.  Most of that is hard to see in these pictures, but you have parts of this model without any undercuts.  That does annoy me quite a bit.  As mentioned earlier, there is an issue with the hard coat frosting on me.  I think that was due to the varnish that I used and not the day, as it was a clear warm day with low humidity.  I also screwed up on the decals when I was applying them on.  I managed to make them more or less look like battle damage, but it is something that I want to try to avoid.  This is on top of the fact that I am trying to use decals for both chapter and squad badges on any new models.  I will certainly use them for many years to come as I build up the rest of my chapter, however when the time comes, I expect to retire these guys.