Random Painting: Citadel Horned Dragon and Forge World 40K Apostate Preachers of Nurgle

Some more fantasy painting to post today - a vintage Citadel Horned Dragon picked up recently on eBay. The MDF base was supplied by Conscript Byron's Northern Lights Terrain - cheers Byron!

Just look at the character in that face! This model was sculpted by Nick Bibby, my favorite dragon sculptor of the vintage era. In case you're wondering what he's up to nowadays, I can tell you that Mr. Bibby is a prolific fine art sculptor.

He's created some amazing pieces, including a series of sculptures of England's champion animals (blackface sheep, shire horses, Angus bulls and the like) and an amazing 15-ft tall Kodiak bear commissioned by Brown University.
  

Bibby's bronzes sell for thousands of pounds nowadays, which makes the $40 or so I had to give for this wonderful vintage dragon seem something of a relative bargain.

For those who aren't familiar with the Horned Dragon, here's a couple pics with human-sized models to give a better idea of scale. Above, the knight from the Citadel Adventurers box I painted recently.

Here's the Dragon with an Otherworld adventurer. 

Finally, some WIP pictures. As was noted by one of the Conscripts the other night, with today's amazingly detailed injection-plastic kits, we tend to forget how much work these old metal kits take...

Wow - you could nearly drive a truck through those gaps! I ended up pinning the two halves of the body together, but the rest of the parts are held just with superglue and greenstuff (fingers crossed).

Lots of greenstuff!

I used a new primer on this model - Rustoleum Painter's Touch "2X Ultra Cover Paint and Primer". Well, I can say that it does what it says on the tin. It was shocking how well the paint covered with just one pass. Recommended.

Lastly, here are some models I pulled out and painted on Saturday afternoon - these are the Forge World "Apostate Preachers of Nurgle" that I've had in my "to paint" Plano case for a year or two. Whilst browsing TMP on Friday I saw someone's excellent work on these models posted on coolminiornot, and decided to just get off my arse and paint mine.

Pretty straightforward paintjobs, these - mostly Catachan Green/Death World Forest highlighted a bit with a lighter mix of DWF, and washed with Agrax Earthshade. I think they turned out fine for a couple hours' work and they'll fit in well with the Renegades.

Chaos Renegade Valkyrie and Hellhound

Well, this week I got REALLY motivated and finished off two models that had been hanging around the painting desk half-finished for literally years.
  

The first one was a rehab Valkyrie that I'd picked up from somewhere long-forgotten. It was assembled and I think it may have been missing some cockpit parts, and I definitely added the rod to replace the broken pitot tube.

You can see that it had a coat of some kind of paint on it before (primer maybe?) but I know I'd bought it with the intention of rehabbing it for my Chaos Renegades.

Once I got cracking, it was a pretty straightforward job. Base of Mechanicus Standard Grey, with Averland Sunset as the contrasting colour, then weathered with Nuln Oil wash and sponge-chipping, and a bit of craft black drybrush soot. The underside was basecoated XV-88 and panel-highlighted with Hoeth Blue. It was a bit bright but looks OK after Nuln Oil and chipping.

This aircraft should do well in our ongoing 40K games. I have very few flyers in my armies but after seeing what Greg's Valk-spam can accomplish I felt it prudent to get at least one for the Renegades!

You can see a bit of the underside paintwork here. Unfortunately the previous owner assembled the model all buttoned up so no interior detail except the cockpit.

The sharp end, avec rocket pods...

This was a fun model to paint. The marking scheme was copied off a model I found on another hobbyist's blog. I thought the yellow panels looked great, so cheers mate! :-)

Today being Sunday, I thought I'd continue the Renegade theme by finishing another model that's languished in basecoat for a couple of years - this Hellhound. It's the older version, with cast metal turret and detail parts.

It's also painted in MSG, but brightened up slightly with an MSG-Celestra Grey mix. Nuln Oil, then chipping and rust (powder mixed with water) followed by a Mournfang Brown drybrush around the dirty bits.

Shout out to our old friends on Toxo IV!

I love the Imperial "number plate" decals from the Baneblade transfer sheet, and use them wherever I can.

Promethium tanks used a bit of weathering.

Tracks were basecoated Leadbelcher and weathered with the rust powder-water mix.

Lucky 13! Good to get this one off the painting desk and into the cabinet as well. Unfortunately, there's plenty more models hanging around the desk where this came from. But that's what quiet Sunday afternoons are for, I guess!

Renegade Bomb Rats?!?

For my birthday this year my wife bought me two sets of Anvil Miniatures' superb little bomb rats. Each comes with four cute little rodents strapped with explosives, jerrycans, artillery shells, etc. I thought that these fellows would be a great addition to my 40K Chaos Renegades army (some Renegade content here, here and here).

The paintjob on the rats is pretty straightforward - Mournfang Brown fur and Cadian Flesh muzzles, with the explosives and webbing in shades of red and tan respectively, the whole washed down with Agrax Earthshade.

Love these guys!

Their Renegade handler is painted in the standard Renegade style with field-grey tunic and camouflage pants. The pointing arm is from a Cadian Heavy Weapons box. The other arm is a GW part, but with the "controller" hand included with the rats pack.
 

I'm not sure what rules we'll use for these fellows if they ever make it into a game, but in any event they're certainly a fun and quirky addition to the army!

40K Renegade Schlepper (1/35 Renault UE Conversion)

So you know how some things just hang around your painting desk forever in a state of half-completion? Well, that's what this project was like for me. I reckon it was about two years from start to finish (!) but now it's done and I can move on.

I was at a local model shop one day and spotted an inexpensive Polish-made 1/35 kit of a funky little tankette, the Renault UE. After the fall of France in 1940, French UEs were pressed into German service, including as launcher platforms for the ubiquitous "Wurfkoerper" rockets. I decided to build the kit for my 40K Chaos Renegade army to stand in as a Manticore SP rocket launcher or even, with rockets removed, as a Centaur artillery tow.

I built the kit pretty much from the box with the addition of a few 40K gubbins like the searchlight (of course) and stowage, plus an Imperial emblem on the hull top, and the Renegade peeking out from the crew compartment. I also constructed a new supporting structure for the rocket array, since the kit version didn't look robust enough to stand up to gaming, and I wanted some flexibility in configuring the vehicle without the rockets.

Looks like my assembly of one of the Wurfkoerper racks was a bit wonky ;-)

In any case, the rack I built from plasticard slots in and out of the rear compartment quite handily. It's only the work of a few moments to switch off from the launcher vehicle configuration.

The other configuration for the vehicle is as a "schlepper"/artillery tow/light carrier.

I built an insert for the cargo compartment with a couple fuel cans, a lasgun, and a pack to represent random stuff that might be carried around.

The insert is built on a piece of plasticard that just slips into the bed. The rocket array replaces it in the bed if that configuration is desired.

So that's that - project completed. Good to get it out of the way, and I can only hope that it inspires other converters!

40K Chaos Renegade Chimera

It's been all-Renegades-all-the-time lately on the old painting table, and vehicles have been among my favourite subjects to paint lately. This is an old-style Chimera armoured vehicle that serves as a command transport for the Renegades. It dates back to around 1995, and is the first version Chimera with separate track links, cursed by many ;-)

For being 20 years old, this design still seems fresh to me, unlike the Leman Russ, which to my eyes has dated somewhat.

Still a cool-looking piece of kit. It was built mostly from the box, with multi-laser and heavy bolter armament.

I had a heavy stubber in the bits box so I carved that up to mount on the cupola. The gunner is an amalgam - Forgeworld Renegade torso with standard IG/AM lower body and arms. "01" tactical numbering indicates a command vehicle.

Rear door is non-functional on this model, primarily because there's no interior detail in the kit and I'm too lazy to scratch-build it ;-)

Some heavy weathering down low on the chassis. I really like the Imperial serial number decals and try to use them on every Guard vehicle kit I build.

Again, the vehicle mounted heavy stubber has to be one of the coolest accessories GW has ever made. I just love the brutality of the look. In this case it nearly outdoes the main armament for looks cool factor!

Watch for more Renegade vehicles coming soon, including some air power to address the Valkyrie gap... :-)

The Four Horsemen

 Well they were given the grapes that go ripe in the sun
That loosen the screws at the back of the tongue
But they told no one where they had begun - the four horsemen!

 I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. 

( Revelation 6:1-2)

 When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come and see!” Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword. 

( Revelation 6:3-4)

 When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”  

(Revelation 6:5-6)

When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come and see!” I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth. 

 (Revelation 6:7-8)

Here's a project that sat on my painting desk for a loooong time before I finally put the boots to it and got it done.

A couple years ago (!) I was at the FLGS looking through a bits box, and found four Chaos Renegade torsos, from the old Citadel "Mounted Renegades" set. I thought these were super-cool and instantly thought "the four horsemen of the Apocalypse!"  I was also in the process of accumulating old school Chaos Space Marines for a Rogue Trader warband of some kind, and thought these would fit well.

What to use for mounts? Well, I'd been working on the Renegade Cavalry at the time and had originally bought Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Marauder horses for them. However, those horses were a bit *too* Chaos-like for the Renegade Cavalry, who after all are just supposed to be Guardsmen torqued about 30 degrees Chaos-ward, not full on raving loonies of the Chaos Gods. So those horses were set aside in favour of regular Pistolier horses. But the Marauder horses seemed to fit perfectly for this project, so I used them.

Legs were another challenge, since the Chaos riders came as torsos only and I had but one set of proper legs in the bits box. Chaos Marauder Horsemen to the rescue again; I used those legs with some mild greenstuff work to fit the metal torsos. Et voila, as they say - conversion complete.

So they sat on my desk, unpainted, for over a year, until this week. I based the paint schemes on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and incidentally, on the four Chaos Powers.

On the white horse we have Conquest/Pestilence. Nurgle, obviously. The red horse bears War, the representation of the Blood God, Khorne. Famine was tougher. But being the God of Pleasure, and therefore of starving supermodels, Slaanesh gets the nod. This leaves Death on his pale horse - Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways. Done!

Now, to get to the rest of that warband...