Acolyte Hybrids (V)

And here is the last post -for now- for the Genestealer Cults for the whole year. With these three I complete the unit and the last cultist I had in my unpainted pile.

After having called the Army complete I still managed to sneak by another 13 miniatures... and I still miss a couple of HQ/Elites options that I would like to have, so you never know when they will come...

Painted in 2020

Acolyte Hybrids (IV)

 Here is another batch of 4 acolytes for the 10-man strong unit I am painting right now.

Painting in 2020

Acolyte Hybrids (III)

The last post with Acolyte Hybrids shared was back in March.

Since I bought some second-hand Characters just for completeness sake, I decided to go ahead and paint the few acolytes that were lying around in my bits box as leftovers. They are a total of 10 and here is the first batch of 3.

Painted in 2020

Sanctus

This is another miniature I never thought about using or buying, but I saw it for cheap and just grabbed him.

It was real fun to paint him, especially the little familiar lying around, I love the sculpt!

Painted in 2020

Kelermorph (II)

 To be honest, I was not expecting to paint another Kelermorph after having converted and painted already one.

But, I saw one for cheap in a second hand store so I needed to get him since I just love the sculpt.

I painted it in the same way as I have done all other models.

Painted in 2020

Biophagus

I was not expecting to share more updates about my Genestealer Cult after I shared the last miniature of the Army.

In fact, I was not planning on buying anything new, but when you find a good deal you ned to rethink your strategy. In the end I would like to have all HQ and Elites option available, especially if I can find them for cheap on second-hand stores.

I have never used this a Biophagus in a battle, but with 9th or newer editions you never know.

I painted him using the same techniques as usual, even though he is dressed in a different way, I still wanted him to blend in with the rest of the Acolytes.

Painted in 2020

Armies on Parade: Genestealer Cult

And finally, here is the mandatory group picture!

As a recap, I painted the very first miniatures of what was at the time a Kill Team in November 2018 and finished the team by March 2019.

After a short break, I restarted the project with the target of painting a 40K Army in October 2019 and finished it in April 2020.

That makes a total of 12 months! That is by far the fastest Army I have ever painted. On average, in the past, it took me 2 years to paint an Army. Therefore, I can only be very happy about the final result, even though I took many shortcuts and painted them to a lower standard compared with my Skavens for example.

Here is the Army, roughly a bit over 2,000 points for 40K 8th Edition. As always, it has been challenging to take a pic of them, but with so many different ones, I hope that I have captured it.

 

Some close-ups...

A cenital view

And a rear view

Baneblade (III): Weathering

It has been a while since the last update, but honestly, finding time to paint has been a real challenge!

Painting this monster of a tank is not a simple task, there is just too many things to do.
In any case, finally I have been able to finish it and here it is.

I tried not to overdo the weathering although I can see I went a bit too far in some areas anyway. I used pigments and AK Interactive enamel washes.
I am very happy to mark this one as done because it is not only a huge figure, but also is the last miniature of the Genestealer Cult Army as well as the first milestone of the year done! I will take out the whole Army for an Armies of Parade blogpost, hopefully soon.

As for taking pictures, it is too big for my lightbox so I just placed it on my desk and took pictures the best I could, which is not that great. You can see all variants and a few pics of the details. Including the mandatory "drive me closer so I can hit them with my sword" picture. I hope you like it!

Next on my table are the Iron Golems of Warcry, for a change!

Baneblade




Banehammer




Banesword




Doomhammer




Hellhammer




Shadowsword




Stormlord




Stormsword

And some detail pics of all the sides

Mandatory "drive me closer so I can hit them with my sword" picture

Painted in 2020

Baneblade (II): painting

It took me a while, but I have finally made some progress with the eight variants of the Baneblade.
Even though I am locked at home like everyone else, family obligations are taking most of my time these days, so my painting time is almost null.
In this step, I have managed to block all the basic colours, painted the Hybrid and basically have it ready for the weathering.
I am not after an extremely weathered look, I just want it to look old. Kind of like it was stolen by the Cult from a storage facility and has had poor maintenance. Therefore, I will favour a dusty look and I will try to contain myself from adding too many scratches, as opposed to my Sons of Horus Army.

I wanted to paint it with urban camo pattern. But, as I do not own an aero, I needed to do it with spray. First, I base coated the tank in black using GW Black Spray. Then, I masked the camo pattern and sprayed Army Painter grey. Without making it a fully consistent coat, to make sure it looks granular in some areas, as if it was sprayed.

After that, I painted all the metals, lights and minor details. Then, I just needed to highlight ribbons and plates.

I did not want to make it look like "too Genestealer", therefore, there is just a single sign of it, barely visible. The idea is that the Cult is not showing itself out openly, so the tank could pass for a poorly maintained Imperial one, and only when it is really close you can see the Cult icon. Which looks like it has been sprayed white on top of a purple stripe on the front.

As a final touch, I added a few decals. It has been years since I don't use decals, but I thought that for the tank it was the right choice.

To highlight the myriad of ribbons and all the plates, I decided to use an enamel wash with white spirit rather than regular wash and edge highlight. The wash I used leaves a dusty, brownish shape, which is the kind of look I wanted. You can see a picture of the wash from AK interactive below.

Next steps are scratches and weathering. For that I will be using streaming grime enamel wash and pigments.

I hope you like it!

Baneblade




Banehammer




Banesword




Doomhammer




Hellhammer




Shadowsword




Stormlord




Stormsword

I hope to have the weathering done by end of the month, let's see...

Baneblade (I): building an Octoblade

As I introduced in the previous post, I wanted to build my Baneblade as Octoblade.

Honestly, I doubt I would ever try out in battle all 8 variants of the Baneblade, but hey, it is a very cool hobby project and I wanted to build it.

I have to say it has been quite challenging, but I am now a proud owner of an Octoblade!

I can't believe how many pieces this kit has!

First, I bought 50 3x1,5mm magnets as I already had 75 of the 2x1mm ones as recommended in the tutorial I was following as a guideline. I also used this other one as a visual help for the unclear parts.

It took me roughly 6 hours to sand and prepare all the components.

Then, another 4 or 5 to assemble, glue, drill, check, double check, triple check polarity and still manage to mess it up a couple of times and then remove and assemble again :)

For me the worst part where the variants of cannons that you can assemble as you need to measure and glue small plastic pieces to hold the magnets inside. That took more than a few attempts to get it right.

I have made small variations compared to what the tutorial was recommending. Basically, I used smaller magnets whenever I could as they were not only easier to drill, they were also handling the job quite well.

I have also left a few pieces without magnet as they just snap into place without help.

The only thing that I somehow managed not to get correctly is the front of the default Baneblade that is about 2mm higher than what it should be, I think it bended slightly when drying up. I was forced to cover it with a small plasticard piece that once painted nobody will be able to notice (that is at least the plan).

So, in total I have a bit over 10 hours of work already on the model and I have not even started to paint it.

I will do some painting experiments over the weekend. I will try out some camo patters using spray paint. I do not own an aero so I will do everything with my good 'ol brush.

Without further ado, here are the pictures of the eight variants.

Baneblade



Banehammer



Banesword



Doomhammer



Hellhammer



Shadowsword



Stormlord



Stormsword

All the pieces required to build these variants with ridiculously flamboyant names...

Now, let's get it painted!