An July is in the bag

... and miracles happen.  I finished the July unit.  Yes I missed last Fridays post, and technically this Fridays post, I spent the time finishing up the guants.  This completes my first unit of guants, only a 10 man, its still complete.  I have my Tervigon summoning unit.  I am really happy with the way they turned out.  Not sure whats next, I can start to work on the warriors that I started this month, or maybe get a big bug painted up.  The Tervigon has a pretty good base coat on it.  The previous owner of the collection had started him.  There is always room for more genestealers...

The initial pic is of the paint bench group.  The 5 guys from July and the 2 I kept on the bench for color matching purposes.  This group doesn't have the blue on the backs.  The blue patterns are used to denote 10 man groups in the larger 30 man groups.  This is not needed when there are onlyg going to be 10 of them.

Back on Track... maybe

So yes its a couple days late.  In fairness I did take the pics Thursday night anticipating my Friday update.  Then all hell broke loose and work was crazy busy.  The good news is the June unit was completed.  I finished the final round of highlights, did the teeth and eyes and presto!

The first group of 5 for the 10 man is done.  This group has yellow guns (those following along, the gun color is how I will differentiate between units.  I am not sold on the center "eye" coloring in this group.  I want them to stand out from the ammo and vents, i don't think this pops quiet enough.  I am going to try something different with the other 5 guys for this unit.  Not pictured here, but this unit has devourer left arms.  When building 90 guants I ran out of arms before flesh borers.  This will limit this unit to 10 guys.  Perfect for 8th ed tervigon summoning.

That means I am on to the July 5 man.  Below are the process shots (from last Thursday).  This Friday you can see just how far they have come in a week.  

** spoiler alert, note the 4 warriors in the back of the pic? They were also started this week with the 5 man guants!  The base colors and initial inking go really fast so it wasn't much extra time to get a jump start on the warriors too.  These guys are just after initial inking, before any highlighting.

EPIC FAIL!

Well you guessed it, 60 days since the last post can only mean 1 thing... epic failure.  Unfortunately the goal completely broke down in May.  I took a week or so off of painting and it really bit me.  Then 8th edition 40k rumors started so I stayed on a painting break.  From there I started thinking going back to bugs was going to be the way to go.  So with all the leaks I used hobby time for gaming and painting stayed on break.

I picked up the brush here and there, and the May unit was actually finished June 21st. The unit finished up nice, the colors are solid throughout the 15 man unit, and it is nice to see them all together.  Glad I went with the 15 man, so i can play Deathwatch with painted cult.  Why not just post then?  well I was hoping to have a magic 10 man month.

At the time these guys were finished I was pumped for 40k and coming off a several game winning streak.  So I decided to return to NIDs.  I thought I could pick up a unit of primed guants and knock them out in a week.  Again EPIC FAIL! the last section of June got crazy and GW announced power creep codex is back so my enthusiasm took a nose dive.  

Alas there may still be hope.  I am going to try (yes again) to post weekly, regardless of status.  Either reporting on status, or lamenting about the GW power creep.  I have the brush in hand and ready to paint.  Assuming I can finish the 5 guants for June, then my issue is do I do more guants? or get some warriors in?

BAM Shacka Lacka

I did it!  Officially the date on the pics is 4-26-17.  The unit was finished, and the challenge still on track.  I will admit that I did get an extra afternoon of paint time, being off from work.  I know, I know, I did use the time to get the squad done, but I also finished up the squad days early.  I tell myself I would have gotten the unit done anyway, but like I said in the last post, panic had set in.

Here are 2 of the guys close up.  The rock drill and  regular guy.  It took an extra layer to get the skin of this group to match the skin of the other group.  Not bad, that is the only blended color I use on the guys.  The rest of the colors are out of the pot, usually thinned with water (80/20) then blended up a shade (50/50).  When I am doing the Nids, the skin and carapace are both blended colors, so several steps include the color matching.

With the extra time I also got in a side project; The Magus and Crouchling.  Full disclosure: the Crouchling was actually a side project last month, when I was working on how to paint the "brains".  This is not the Magus from the Overwatch box, this is in fact an old school (2nd edition baby!) Magus. Thats right, way back in the day they had cult guard.  I like how the main features are still prominent in the model line.  Those who know me, know I like to use an old school model in all of my armies.  This is the one for the cult.

I recently got a new phone and have quite figured out the lighting to get decent pictures.  I went with the traditional red and bone for the Magus.  I didn't get any shots, but the bone armor on his back came out real nice.  The brains are hard to see on the crouchling as well, but I am happy with the way both models turned out.

With 8th edition of 40k on the horizon and big changes promised, I am tempted to "wait and see".  I have a company of marines, and 3 piles of bugs that need painted.  Who knows what will be viable/fun to play when 8th drops.   Rather than stop the paint challenge I am going to focus on grunts for the next couple of months.  I had wanted to paint up a character or 2, but, I think its a safer bet to stick to the grunts.  For painting cult I am going to work on the other contents to Overkill.  Worst case is I have painted models for that game. No matter what changes in 8th, I am pretty sure I will always need guants and acolytes.  My fingers are crossed the cult keep most of the same mechanics.  I really like there ability to move around the board and would love to play them into the next edition.  It would also be a kick in the wallet to have bought all of them and only play them for 6 months, wouldn't be the first time GW got me like that.  I guess they can always go on the shelf.  It only took 5 editions to play cult guard again, they can wait...

Woah, its been 30 days...

Man how time flies.  It new I had not posted earlier this month, but forgot the last post was middle of last month.  Well my initial prediction was correct.  At that point I didn't get much farther on the second squad.  In fact it was just yesterday I looked at work table and realized I hadn't painted since before my work trip.  The "oops" moment was then realizing I got back over a week ago.  Looking at the bench panic set in at this point.  Having now only a couple weeks to finish the unit.

So where is were there were on Friday.  This is basically the pre-wash  stage.  Some of the minor details like pouches and rags are not done.  I got all the base layers on, then washed them.

  This is where they currently are.  The pants and details need several layers of highlights yet.  The skin also has another layer to go.  2 weeks to go in the month, I say its 50/50 at this point to stay on the challenge.  The blue part of the skin is done, that is one of the longer segments, but I still have the purple skin to go up 2 more layers and the minor stuff to do. I am really excited to see the squad as a painted 10 man, then the full 15 man. /fingerscrossed