Of Epic Proportions (spring clean challenge 26)

I can suffer from bad anxiety so for my own health and sanity, I’ve decided to paint a Leman Russ.

I only have one Demolisher so I can’t really use it so I’ll have a go at painting it and see how I do.

Wish me luck

The land raiders are the largest models, I’ve painted so far so I approached them with a little trepidation. The first thing is that they are a little boring compared to later versions so the first thing was to alter it’s silhouette. I had a commander model that had lost it’s sword so I cut it in two to give one of the raiders a slight change.

I then painted them in the same fashion as the marines, which in hindsight wasn’t the best way. It left them slightly bity looking.

This has left me more nervous about the guard. Considering they are nearly entirely armour, I’m going to need a different approach.

I was talking to a friend about this challenge and what I was doing, and he noticed something. Something that I hadn’t even thought of.

I had completely forgotten the most iconic unit of the Blood Angels, the Death Company.

I wanted to get the vibe of the Death. Making them all jump back just doesn’t feel right. For a collection of marines that have lost all sense of reason, been in perfect formations just feels wrong. So an odd weapon swap, and a collection of different types of armour give the models the right vibe.

So this Jaq Draco has been completed. Trying to do any detail on a figure this small is beyond my ability.

So I need to get the feel of the character. The illustrations of him show a figure in red terminator armour with a gold shoulder pad and an open face plate.

Changing the face ain’t happening, so I’ll just have to painting the face as best I can, even though it’s a marine mask. As I’ve discovered at this scale sometimes the illusion does most of the work. That just leaves the red armour and a gold shoulder pad.

Am I 100% happy with him, no. He really deserves better. I also think he needs his own Land Raider to travel around in. The land raider is something I might return to, but at the half way point and I really need to get cracking. I still have the guard to do, and I’m getting a sense of foreboding with them.

When I got into this hobby it was through fantasy. Hero Quest and, Forgotten Realms and Warhammer fantasy. Goblins and Elves are what drew me in rather that space marines and aliens. It didn’t take long through the exposure in White Dwarf to fall in love with 40K. More specifically it was this white dwarf.

It had a free space marine, and a battle report between orks and this Space Marine army.

This was the first appearance of Tycho (or at least as far as I am aware). And somehow he has been a constant part of my armies. Where it was the early Jes Godwin sculpt or the later one with his phantom masks (I had two of these) Tycho became a staple of my old 40k armies.

So what was this rather long winded amble down memory lane for. Well since the reason I decided on the 3rd company was because of Tycho, so I had to do a captain figure to represent him.

It’s no the greatest paint job or even scuplt,  (and I’ve no idea what happened to that apothecary) but his presence needed even to be here.

The little and often painting schedule means that I’m getting through models at a faster rate now.  It doesn’t seem to have taken anytime at all to have finished another Assualt company

A friend knowing I liked 40k and in particular old 40k gave me a brown envelope full of bits of old cardboard. This was the old cardboard

In amongst a treasure trove of old cardboard scenery, counters and pamphlets was this advert