Dark Angels - Part XIV - Ravenwing Bikes III

This weekend I sat down and finished two more of my Ravenwing bikes that I started over a month ago. I built them and then tacticals and veterans was more interesting for a while.

Now however they are complete. Sadly I cant really use them right now as they are... The Dark Angels codex only gives permission to field three or six bikes, and nothing in between, so until  the codex hits in another month or so, I'll just have to like it they way it is and play them as vanilla marines if I want to use them all.

I've not really done anything to this set of bikes, my plan is to not have two bikes that looks the same, and even though I already have a plasma gun biker, this time he got a fire effect from Armorcast added to the gun. I really do like these effects, but I have to remind myself not to use to many of them. I'm trying to not use more than one or two in each squad, and have some of them without any at all.

What I have also done this time is getting the bases done, not only for these two new bikes, but for the three I already had as well. So now my whole army has bases and are ready for some action.

I've had some requests of pictures of the whole army as well, and I'm going to take some in the coming week or so, I just have to put a lot of other miniatures away so that I can clear a place large enough to get them all in one shot.

The two new bikes

The whole squad

Dark Angels - part XIII - Tacticals IV

I've gotten into a bit of a painting streak, and actually gone from start to finish with a few miniatures in under a week. What I've painted now is a five man tactical unit, so now I really have a legal army standing on my shelf.

This time I now only made some Dark Angel symbols to put on their shoulder pads, I also made a tactical symbol and stuck it on there. I really like to have the symbols as this, gives the miniature a bit more character I think. Then only thing I'm not that pleased with, is that they are a bit thick... I don't have any solution for this at the moment, so I'll have to live with it.

Apart from the symbols I made the squad so that they have a com-link and used parts from the Dark Angels veteran set to give each miniature at least something unique. Be it a Dark Angel bolter, backpack or a holster for a bolt pistol. I also gave my sergeant a robe, something I think most, if not all of my sergeants will get. And if it's not a whole robe, then perhaps a tabard as the sergeant from the Dark Vengeance set.

As per usual I have a few pictures of the completed miniatures here for you to see;

Dark Angels - part XII - Veterans II

After a quite a long time away from here I got some more miniatures completed a few nights ago. I have had parts of my veterans completed for some time, but I what they lacked was some arms, a few backpacks and lots of shoulder pads among other things.

I was planing om waiting to complete them until the new codex showed itself mostly to decide what kind of weapons they should have, but I got tired of having them around and made myself some combi-plasmas for them. I've more or less decided that plasma will be the thing to use by my angels, partly because it's quite good in this edition, and the rumors around them having a lot of plasma everywhere in the new edition.

My combi weapons are made of a standard bolter with the top replaced by the top half of a plasma pistol. Really simple, perhaps not the greatest variant, but one I could build, and can build again without much trouble.

I also wanted to get away from using transfers on my miniatures, while they are nice and can be very useful i thought they lacked something. So I found a suitable plastic part, made a mold of that and did a bunch of greenstuff symbols to stick on the shoulders. I think it worked quite well, and they look nice with this added little thing. The only thing that troubles me is that it's quite hard to get them to stick all over, I have a few feathers that sticks out, and parts thats not quite as bendable as I would like.

I also made a com-link for the unit, this is something I want to have in most units, just to give them a bit more character and it looks right to have it there, they should all be able to call home =)

But here they are, four more veterans to complete my unit of five with the one I painted before.

And a lot of closeups of the individual miniatures

Dark Angels - Part XI - Deathwing Terminators I

About a week and a half ago I started painting on my Terminators from the Dark Vengeance set, I had also a few days before gotten hold of my first airbrush, so naturally I used this in the process.
I did something kind of zenith highlight, that said I painted them first in my base color for the bone, washed it in brown wash and then started with the base again and painted them from a high angle, not hitting the back and underside of things and then continue with lighter and lighter colors, spraying less and less with each change.
It turned out... ok i guess, I should have been a bit bolder in my base color choice and perhaps a bit more careful with how much I paint with the highlights, but for a first try and the first minis I paint on at all, I'm quite happy.

After the base it came down to all the details, and there is a lot of them on these... It felt like each time I completed something, I found another thing that needed attention. So the painting took far longer than I thought it would.

At least they are complete now, based and everything. So here is a few pictures of them, the lighting wasent with me today and bone was a bit harder to get good photos of than I thought, so you'll have to take them as they are, quite bad...

Dark Angels - Part X - Ezekiel

After I completed my last bikes and brought the army up to something that could kind of be played, I felt the need for some character to lead my band of angels. Since the beginning of time I've had a Ezekel model, I bought him when he first was released back during 2ed but never got around to finish him. I did get some paint on him, but never more than that.

So a few months ago I threw him in a green soap bath and got rid of the old paint, and since then he's been standing around, taking up space and looking at me. So I placed brush to model and started painting him.

I did change up his banner a bit, the original model had this old banner backpack, but I didn't want to add any paper banner, so I dug around a bit, found a scroll and some seals, and that would have to do as a banner.
So far I haven't painted any text on it, I haven't decided how to do it, so I'll let it rest and when I get some inspiration how I want it I'll do it then.

Other than that, there isn't anything real fancy about this model, it was nice and easy to paint, the details was good even though it was made 15+ years ago.

And here are the images on him

Dark Angels - Part IX - Ravenwing Bikes II

During the last week I got another unit done, this time a whole unit of bikes are ready to get stuck in.
The bikes are one from the Dark Vengeance set, and one from the Ravenwing battleforce. On the two I used two quite different techniques, one of them fot a base of a light gray, and then layer upon layer of black and brown washes, all in all I think I used about ten layers. The other got a black base coat, some small highlights and a black/brown wash over this.

The wash method do produce a slightly better model with some nice shadings and highlights, but it just takes so much time that I don't think I'll continue using it for my standard bikes, perhaps for characters and such, but time will tell about that.

But now I have a usable tactical squad and a bike squad so soon I'll have an army that can take to the field!
Now I'm thinking if I should do a character to lead them or perhaps a unit of terminators, to try out how I want them painted, I have both options cleaned up and ready to be primed, so whatever grabs my fancy next time I sit down at my painting table will be the thing I get done.

Until next time, here are some pictures;

The whole unit;