Thursday, October 31, 2013

Deathwing Terminator Paint Scheme and Conversions in Progress

Ten months is an absurd gap between posts, but I’ve both bought a house and gotten engaged in the meantime, so it hasn’t been a complete waste of time. I’ve also been working semi-regularly on fluff and force organization for the Dark Angels successor chapter that I would like to create around my army, but that’s best left for a later post!

When last we met, I was working on the bases for a tactically generic squad of terminators. In the last few months, I've finally unpacked all of the goods and started making time to get down to business. My chief project is my next squad of five terminators as I work to build up an entire first company (clearly, I have a long way to go), and I've moved to more of a capture-and-control squad with a Cyclone Missile Launcher and no special melee weapons. This is basically a blip of an update to show some progress, but more will come in time.


The CML was actually finished early this year, so it comes from a different “season” of painting. I’m both pleased and disappointed to say that I’ve been able to make improvements in my painting since this guy was finished.

Along with that first squad, he lacks some of the shading that I’ve used more recently and has a few more white skulls on his armor than I think I’d like to have moving forward (I’ve been trending toward bronze). To that end, he may receive a touch-up before being sealed. Additionally, he’s an old pewter model that I’ve repainted a bit and never really cleaned up in the first place, so he’s a mess.

Next up, possibly my best terminator to date:


This guy isn’t quite finished, but reflects a lot of improvements in shading and some nit-picky color scheme choices. In order to inject some diversity into a fairly drab basic scheme, I’m “awarding” various members with bronzed powerfists, helmets, boots, etc to recognize certain acts of prowess or valor. I think there will probably be some green and red thrown in as well. Additionally, each squad will have unique insignia emblazoned across their right shoulder and/or knee. In this case, the progenitor chapter symbol has been retained on the shoulder pad, but the knee will soon reflect this squad’s red devastator-esque downward blast shown on the cyclone’s shoulder above.

When building an entire first company of terminators, it’s critical to make good use of low-cost models as can be found in the Assault on Black Reach box and so-on. The downside is that things can get pretty repetitive if you don’t or can’t kit bash a lot. The Sergeant below is a work in progress, but makes use of one of my favorite mods to-date.


As can be seen, he has a gorget that is not native to terminator armor. It is, in fact, the upside-down belt and lower abdomen of a spacemarine waste – I believe Mark VII pattern. Anyway, it distinguishes him from the other bald dudes, and gorgets are awesome.

Anyway, that's it for now, but I just got some "new" mordian guardsmen, ravenwing, and other goodies, so I hope to be back soon!