Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons

Having finally read A Thousand Sons, I've decided to have a go at making a Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons army. Warhammer 30K man!

Started to put together a list of stuff I needed to convert my minis.

My inspiration

Will be using mainly TK plastics and some Grey Knight / CSM parts to convert the models.

I managed to get these sweet 'Stargate' looking Anubis and Horus helmets which I hope to recast for my power armored boys. The Anubis head will be the Sorceror and the rest will have the Horus heads. (If you remember in Stargate, the chief guardian is Anubis headed. The Sorcerer will carry a Heqa staff and the rest will be carrying swords or halberds with kopesh type blades (from TK tomb guard).

For the Sekhmet or Scarab Occult who are the veterans, I'll be using these resin Terminator casts also with Anubis and Horus heads.

Planning to have an initial 1500 - 1750 point army consisting of :

Ahriman

2 units of  3 Sekhmet Terminators

3-4 units of 9 Rubricae, each unit will represent one of the main cults - Corvidae, Pyrae, Raptora, Pavoni (not sure about the Athenaens at the moment)

Defiler (using a Necrosphinx head and torso on Defiler legs)

Heldrake (suitably modded to look Egyptian / Sphinx-like)

Armour will be in Crimson Red with Gold and White Trim.

PI Monthly Painting Challenge - Done!

Started on this guy at 11.25 pm using a technique I found on the web called 'chiaroscuro' - Italian for 'light-dark'. It involves blocking out sections using gradients of shading.

Basecoat Chaos Black

Drybrush all over with Codex Grey

Drybrush highlights with Fortress Grey and Skull White

Add colour using washes.

Robes - Guilliman Blue Glaze 1:3 parts water, several layers
Armour - Leadbelcher 1:3 parts water, several layers
Gold - stain the Leadbelcher using Devlan Mud and Calthan Brown 1:1:3 parts water
Chaos Icons - Hawk Turqoise and Mephiston Red
Staff - Warlock Purple stain 1:3 parts water with Skull White added for definition and lining
Skin - Codex Grey and Caledor Sky 1:1:3 parts water 
Eyes - Mephiston Red
Shading - Nuln Oil to tips of horns and in between armour plates
Base - Codex Grey shaded with Devlan Mud and Nuln Oil

The finished Chaos Sorcerer Lord

 The whole model took me about one and a half hours to complete and I'm quite happy with the results.

The Chiaroscuro technique is really fast because it uses a lot of drybrushing. Careful drybrushing to define the light and dark areas of the model coupled with several careful layers of colour washes brings the whole model together and is good enough for table top quality.

I think I should be able to pull off my 1.5 k army in 2 weeks at this rate.

PI Penang Monthly Painting Challenge - Just for fun

Well the nice folks at Paradigm Infinitum Penang (PI Penang) have initiated a monthly painting challenge to hone their painting skills. Basically each staff member will select a model or models to paint and pledge to complete within the month. No prizes, just the pride of completing a nicely painted model and bragging rights.

Having nothing better to do (sic!) and an abundance of models to paint up I decided to join the fun and get some of my greyish armies painted up.

Here's my pledge for the November painting challenge: A Chaos Sorceror Lord.

Chaos Sorceror Lord

I've assembled him and will be going for a Tzeentchian theme - Blues and golds. Going to try out a method using washes that I found on the web and will update with some step by step pics on my progress. I've got 4 days to finish this guy which should be enough I think.

Assembled and ready for a lick of paint