Well the Stormlord is very nearly finished, only a bit of drybrushing and painting of the shrine beside the engine pipes left to do and then I’ll call it a day. I’m not going to pretend that this is 100% perfect – or even 80% and I could happily tinker away at this for the next six months and still not be completely happy with it. However there comes a point where you just have to draw a line underneath a project and move onto the next with a lot of new found knowledge. Once I’ve got these last couple of bits done, I’ll post up the completed paint job and a long list of “things learned”.
Just over a week ago, I listed two cases of Vallejo paints on eBay as I never used them and felt it was better to have them gone from my house and some money in my pocket. Well I’m happy to say that they both sold for more than I was expecting which has meant that I’ve treated myself to a Forge World Contemptor Dreadnought which I fully intend to assemble and paint in time to enter into Golden Demon, which is just under 5 months away (after I finish my Arachnarock legs).
Although it may sound insane, I realised that I actually only started assembling the Stormlord the beginning of the year and painting towards the end of January. The Stormlord is massive, certainly far bigger than the dreadnought and I’ve completed that in just over four full months – and that takes into account a few weekends ill and others taken up with other tasks. The amount of conversion required is minimal in comparison to my last GD dreadnought and all of my previous research is going to be valid for this task. The order was submitted this morning so with luck I ought to have this by the beginning of next week. One big benefit of this project is that there is a lot less area to paint, so unlike the Stormlord where I had to wait until I had a 3 or 4+ hour slot to do something (like painting the hull), a similar task can be undertaken in a couple of hours of an evening. Having my airbrush permanently set up (unlike when I was doing my Arachnarok) also means that I can nip up and do a bit of work of an evening rather.
I need to give some consideration to a decent base. Although the actual model is around 3″ tall and the wooden plinth adds a further 2″, there are a lot of new vehicles that are taller, such as those with banner poles, demon engines and some of the other Forge World pieces. To this effect the base really needs to add another 2″ onto the height. It will also make it a lot easier to see in a display cabinet. One thing that I think would help is if I have a very light coloured base – so a snow effect or sand effect. This would also compliment the grey-blue armour colour that I’ll be using – unlike a grey stone effect 😉