Painting: Dark Angels ('Dualwing')

It's been a few weeks since my last post because I've been putting off the inevitable: PAINTING.

Goddammit though, I have to bite the bullet sometime.

That sometime is now. A week on Friday a few friends and I head to the GW November Throne of Skulls at Warhammer World. Last time I was there I ad a pretty sucky timebecause my 5th ed Angels Sanguine got trounced. Repeatedly. No fun. 

To mend that I'm taking an army I don't really know, it's really my play style and that I've barely practiced with. On top of that it needs painting. I essentially have five full days. (away with work, travel etc) so it's going to be a challenge for sure. Here's where things are at...

A few posts back I showed some Deathwing I started with the airbrush. I need 10 for the force I'm taking so have to paint another 5 to match. The only problem is I don't remember my recipe. That's a bugger. I'm sure I can figure it out, just hopefully without any cock ups first. Watch this space.

The 'to-do' pile: 18 bikes, Sammael, Darkshroud, 10 Terminators, 2 attack bikes.

To allow me to procrastinate further I decided to add to Sammael's jetbike. Since I 'finished' the conversion I've been thinking something was missing. Recently I decided it lacked height. Today I decided to add a tail fin made from an old landspeeder wing. 

Here's before:

 And now:

Admittedly I now think it's maybe too tall but I do prefer it looking more 'chunky' like this - I'd added a lot of bits to the front to it helps balance it. I might try and add a couple of Ravenwing icons to the fin if I can sand them slimmer. 

Another shot:

With that done I actually got the paints out and started on bases for everything in one batch. I made the bases a while ago from cork sheet:

I wanted them a reddish brown, kind of a Martian landscape of dry, flat plains. I used a Vallejo coloured surface primer for over black undercoat for some natural shading. I then drybrushed a couple of old GW colours - Bestial Brown and Snakebite Leather - over all the edges and 'gravel'. This is how they came out:

The Darkshroud is finished by the way :)

And that's pretty much where I'm up to. Sorry there's isn't much of any actually painted Dark Angels as the title really suggests, there will be! The plan is: Sunday - undercoats for everything, start Deathwing; Monday - Deathwing, start Sammael; Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - Ravenwing squad per day plus Darkshroud. 

It's going to be a real challenge. The advantage is that most of the army is black so it's really going to be a case of undercoat black, base coat black, details. It sounds simple anyway and with 7 models per day I'm hoping to be able to do them to a semi-decent standard before the tournament. I'll also try to update this each day...that'll be the real challenge!

Wish me luck!