THIS IS A TEST

 Back when I started my Night Hawk chapter, I painted up a squad of veterans (1 st Company) which got photographed for the White Dwarf article that featured my army, this was back before I had different symbols for my squads, here's what they looked like

You may notice some of the models I showed recently in my assault squad, as all the models here are no longer together or veterans. To mark them as veterans I painted the helms with a feathered pattern. Fast forward a couple of years, and a friend wrote some background and named the 1 st Company the Wing Knights, loved the name, and wanted to change the look to match the name, I've finally come up with a look I like.

The head comes from a Grey Knights, the shoulder pad is my own design, which I've also incorporated in a chest symbol on the harness. I think I still want to have MK VI beakies in the units as well, but it's a start.

I have actually finished another assault squad for my 5 th Company as well, these first 3 are a sergeant model, a plastic combination, and a MK VI Space Wolf Blood Claw.

The next 4 are all Rogue Trader models

The last 3 of the squad are metal Blood Company models and some of the arms actually came from the plastic blood company box as well

I did remember to take a squad picture as well

Many years ago when I worked at GW, my staff made a comment that if I ever ran out of Marine models to make up, they'd watch Satan skate to work, well apparently hell must have frozen over as I've had to resort to sculpting up models that I'd used for parts as you can see below

Yes I'm going to have order in more bits, as sections of the bits box is now completely empty, no bodies, no legs and no helmeted heads left, never thought I'd get to this point ! LOL

This will be my last entry for my challenge, don't worry I will still be following all your blogs to see if you post up entries over the next couple of weeks. That's all for today, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

BACK IN TIME

 For any long term readers you may remember me updating my tournament scouts, as I hadn't finished them in time for the tournament, but still wanted to finish them properly. Well since the last squad I showed this unit has sat on my desk, with an occasional bit of work on them I have finally got round to finishing my shotgun squad. When this squad was built, there was only the metal scouts, of which there was only two models produced with shotguns, as you may have noticed I don't really like duplicates, which ment I was going to need to convert a 80 % of the squad. The sergeant was converted from the sergeant with bolt pistol and close combat weapon, as was the scout next to him, the third was made from the scout with heavy bolter.

The next three include the two production models, the third was a Space Wolf scout model which I converted.

The next four were all converted from scouts with pistol and close combat weapons, I think they have all been watching too many Tarentino movies with how they are holding shotguns ! LOL

Dai recently asked if I could start doing squad photo's, so here is me trying to do that to the best I can, hopefully they will improve with practice ! LOL

I have one scout squad left to revisit, and hopefully these wont take as long to finish, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

EVERY MODEL COUNTS

 Over the years i have bought many Space Marine models, and just because newer ones have come out, I never felt like I shouldn't use the old ones as well. This squad of Assault Marines is a prime example of this, the first 3 models are from the Rogue Trader era, and the two bare headed ones were actually the limited edition Christmas Marines, before being modified.

The next 3 are all MK VI armour one was originally a Blood Angel, another was a Space Wolf Blood Claw, and the third was a basic MK VI.

The 4 MK VII models originally started as 2 from the Death Company range, and the other 2 were from the Assault Marine box, from the Second Edition set.

All the above models are metal, with some plastic arms and weapons, including the Rogue Trader era models, to tie them together. They have been painted as part of the 5 th Company, shown by the black knee pad, and are squad 1 also marked on the knee pad. So why not save them for Keith's challenge, well they were mostly done before I was taken ill last year, and only required a little finishing off.

That's all for this post, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

NUNS WITH GUNS

 No I am not talking that terrible movie of the above name, but the remaining Sisters of Battle models that I had left over from my Twisted Sister project, as I am trying to reduce my bits box collection rather than add to it, I thought I could add them as a small unit to go with the Inquisitor I have to check out my Space Marines, as I thought they would probably send a lot of different elements. The first thing was to choose an order for them, not wanting to go for any of the main ones, I had a quick search on Google, and found the Order of the Thorn, as seen below.

As I haven't bought a GW army book in many years I had no idea about them, but liked the color scheme, below are the four sisters and the cherub that came in the box.

No conversions on the above, just straight from the box, once these were finished I looked at the standard bearer bits, and thought I'd make a couple of shrines as gaming markers.

While I was searching the bits boxes I found a couple of Raging Heroes models that would fit with Sisters of Battle, so painted them up in the same color scheme, the one on the left was converted using some spares from the GW box set, to tie it in more, the one on the right is standard.

While I was routing through the bits boxes I also found the original Rogue Trader Assassin model, so painted that up as well, went for a black ninja color scheme, as the footwear and hood suggested a resemblance, I also darkened down any metal areas to reduce shine.

So why am I not finishing my Star Wars squads at the moment, well I'm saving them for Keith's Forced March painting challenge, where it's all about painting squads during March, this is not to be confused with imperial rebel ork and Wudughasts challenge of the same name where they are trying to paint Imperial Guard armies by the end of March. If Keith's blog has closed on comments, let me know in the comments, and I'll email your details across for you.

That's all for today, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

TWISTED SISTERS

 No I haven't discovered Glam Rock ( I did that back in the 80's and 90's ! LOL) no I've finally converted up a squad of chaos sisters of battle, now before any one says that wouldn't happen, GW actually showed this back when they used to do their comic book Warhammer Monthly in the story Demonifuge with Ephral Stern. When I saw this there was limited models available and they were all metal, so cleaning off the Imperial symbols would have been very time consuming, so I stuck the idea to the back of my mind. Now the Sisters are plastic it would make the conversions a lot quicker and easier to do. Being Slaanesh I could have gone over the top with conversion being the God of Excess, but I decided to keep it minimal, and not perverted. The first 3 all have a flamer weapon including my aspiring champion, who has a Demonette head, the flamers hair comb also came off of a Demonette, and green stuffed onto the helmet, the horns on the heavy flamer, are just greenstuff, as are the flames on the shoulder pad and the skull on the other side (slowly trying to greenstuff again after the operation). On each of the robes I went for a different design to give each one a individual feel.

On the next three with bolters the top knot came off of a Demonette again, and the skull face mask was greenstuffed on, the robes also have different designs on them as well.

Am I turning this into a full army, no, I will be adding this to my Emperor's Children army, or possibly the Lost and the Damned section with the mutants and followers, which it would fit in better with, and it was nice to add a little something to that army, without going over board like I did with the Kroot ( plus it wasn't painting white either ! LOL). A huge thank you to my wife for getting these models for me for our anniversary. That's all for today, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

LIKE A MOTH TO A FLAME

 Last week my youngest son had work experience at my company, this isn't an easy way out, as I set the task of designing building and making a castable product in 5 days. We went through his ideas and he settled on a man eating plant, which we've called a Moon Flower, here is what it looks like

The background behind it is over the night time, it opens it's petals revealing it's bioluminescent centre, which attracts all creatures, once within reach the roots ensnare the creature and digests the flesh and fluids leaving the bones, which are pulled into the earth helping enrich the soil.

I think he's done an excellent job and it will make a great addition to my Alien Terrain section. Obviously I didn't have a huge amount of time for painting so finished off the last of the Kroot on my desk first is a Vulture Kindred which are effectively jump pack troops, this brings it up to a squad of 11 which will be as large as I go.

I also got 6 Kroot for squad 1 finished. This squad is in more action style poses.

I need another 6 Kroot to finish all the squads to the number I want, so at some point will need to get one more box to finish it all off. I also made a couple of trap markers using the man trap that you get in the kill team box, sure I need a few more so will have to see what else I can come up with, maybe some Punji sticks.

Bit of an eclectic mix today so hopefully you found something interesting, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave