Little Tanks & Tiny People

I've painted up some more Cyberpunk Sisters of Battle. Most are duplicates of the ones I did before , so I'll just show the new ones. First up is Saint Celestine, or Saint Cyberine if you prefer. Saint Cyberine Canoness Sister Superior and Sister with Heavy Flamer Another 13 Cyber Sisters still to go...

From olive drab back to purple. I’ve finished the tanks for my growing cyberpunk Sisters of Battle army , who I have named the Sisters of Synth. Land Raider I thought the retro look of the Horus Heresy range would fit well with my cyberpunk theme, so I picked up a Land Raider as the transport for the Command unit. I thought about picking up two Rhinos from the range as well, but that would set me back another 70-80 Euros. I remembered, however, that I still had two old S.O.B. Rhinos laying around. So I opted for stripping them back to bare plastic and repainting them. I also removed some of the more gothic-looking details like purity seals and relics. Painting was really fun, but I think I’ll skip on edge highlighting for a little while… Rhino 1 Nearly identical Rhino 2 Base: Royal Purple 70.810 Lines: Light Turquoise 70.840 and Magenta Fluorescent 69.056 over Pink 70.958 Panel lining: Heavy Blue 72.143 Highlights: Pink 70.958 Bolter: Bright Orange 70.851 Metal: Gunmetal ...

Back in 2022 I repainted the majority of my Space Marine army . I’ve now made a modest start on repainting my old metal Sisters of Battle army as well. Having completed Cyberpunk 2077 and its DLC earlier this year, I was heavily inspired by the synthwave colour palette of my character’s outfit. I’m aware that the bright clashing colour scheme may not be for everyone, but I think it looks pretty cool and unique. I’ve painted up my first squad and plan to add another squad and a Canoness. I might add some Sisters Repentia as well, although I’m not sure if the colour scheme will work very well on them. Painting was fairly straightforward, apart from the magenta on the fabric. On the whole I love Vallejo paints, but their Mecha Color Magenta Fluorescent does not cover at all! Even after five coats it still doesn’t cover properly. The colours I’ve used:  Base: Royal Purple 70.810 Fabric: Light Turquoise 70.840 + white for highlight, Magenta Fluorescent 69.056. Highlights, hai...

Two posts in a day! I’ve also repainted this old Space Marine Dreadnought for my Blood Raven army. I painted straight over the original paint job, so it may not be as smooth as it could have been. There’s not a whole lot to say about it. It was a pretty quick job, just two painting sessions and a bit of basing. The colours I used can be found here .

After four months, my Space Marine army is all done! No more red armour for me for the foreseeable future... All that was left w as  a plastic captain, two more metal veterans/champions, two plastic close combat marines and a metal apothecary.   I think the apothecary is a 2nd edition sculpt. He really shows his age, being noticeably shorter and chubbier than his - also not that new anymore - brethren. I really like him, though, and enjoyed painting him up.   The white armour was a fun change and all the little vials and probes are a nice touch. And finally, a shot of the whole army: 4 tanks, 4 bikes, 23 tactical marines, a 6-man command squad, 6 terminators, 5 assault marines and 8 scouts, for a total of 56 models! Click here for part one Click here for part two  Click here for part three Click here for part four

Right, up next in my Space Marine army are the tanks! I chose to repaint my rhino, two razorbacks and landraider. I also own a predator, but I never really liked the look of a turret on top of a rhino chassis. I decided not to strip the models back to bare plastic. I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to get them completely clean and was a bit worried that paint gunk from the stripping process would hide some of the details. Stripping also requires a lot of isopropyl alcohol to completely submerge the models and I didn’t feel like ordering a new batch of ipa just for this project. Painting over the old paint jobs resulted in some subtle brush marks, but they are only really noticeable when you are holding the models right up to your face. And even with the brush marks, I think you’ll agree that the new paint job is a vast improvement over the old one! I really enjoyed painting these tanks. I even enjoyed the edge highlighting step, and there were a lot of edges... Apart from tha...

It’s time for part three of my ongoing project of stripping and repainting my old SpaceMarine army ! Now, I have to be honest. I didn’t actually have any bikes in my old army, those are new purchases. I just really like the cartoony look of those chunky bois on their chunky bikes. For some silly reason the bikes come with bases, but the attack bike does not. It probably has to do with the fact that the bikes have a tough time staying upright without a base, while the attack bike is stabile enough to not need one. I just thought it would look a lot better if all bikes had a base, so I made my own out of 3.5 mm polystyrene sheet. I briefly thought of giving it a round base, but I didn’t think my coping saw skills were up for the task. So in the end I settled on a simple rectangular base. It’s a bit large and plain, but all in all I think it looks pretty good. The assault squad are old miniatures that I stripped and repainted. I also cut off and repositioned the sword hand of the sergea...

As a fun little one-day project I painted up this marine in celebration of Pride Month. He is basically a Reiver that I had left from making my Space Wolves Kill team .  The only conversion work, if you can call it that, is that I sanded off the skull and crossbones on his chest and sculpted a simple heart out of Milliput. I’m not a big fan of the Reiver helmets, so I replaced it with a Grey Knights one. I loved freehanding the rainbow and sparks on his pauldrons.

Up next in my project of repainting my old Space Marine army are some Space Marine Scouts, Terminators and a Terminator Captain. The paints I used are essentially the same as for my tactical squads. So if you’re interested in which paints I used, you can find out out over here . To start with the Scouts, these are the old (late 2nd edition?) metal minis that came in blister packs. They may be pretty old, but the sculpts hold up really well compared to some other figures. There were only two sniper sculpts available back then - at least in my local hobby store - so I added in a couple of Cadians for variety. Once painted I think they fit in very well with their Space Marine cousins. To be honest, my original Scouts were already painted to a fairly decent level. The biggest improvement are the camo cloaks. The camo pattern was inspired by a four-tone desert camouflage, with the colours swapped for light and dark grey, black and white. I realise that the grey cloaks don’t make a lot of...

  It’s been a while since my last post, but that’s because I’ve started a pretty big undertaking. I’m going to repaint my old Space Marine army ! Or, you know, at least a significant part of it. Painting the Space Marine Armour through the ages box set got me in the mood to paint some more genetically modified super soldiers. I’ve started with two full squads, including two veteran sergeants, and some extra models with heavy weapons so I have options. That’s 23 models in total.   The figures are a mix of one-piece plastic tactical marines from the old Battle for Macragge starter box, multipart plastic models, all metal veteran marines and plastic/metal models from the old devastator squad box. Quite a few of the figures are now out of production and those that aren’t haven’t changed since the early 2000’s. Although not quite Rogue Trader old, you could by some definitions call these Oldhammer. But that would make me old too, so let’s not...   Two veteran sergeants wi...

From left to right, Mk. I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII After a couple months of historical stuff I felt like doing some Warhammer minis. This is the Space Marine Armour Through The Ages kit by Citadel, representing the Mk. I, II, III, IV and V suits. For a laugh I also stripped and repainted a Mk. VI and VII from my old Space Marine army.  As an archaeologist I appreciate a good typology, so painting up the various armour variants was a lot of fun. Other than that these resin minis were a little rough around the edges and needed some cleanup, there is not a whole lot else to say. I’ll just list the main paints I’ve used   Mk. I: Vallejo Medium Blue 70.963 Mk. II: Citadel Caliban Green Mk. III: Vallejo Royal Purple 70.810 Mk. IV: Vallejo Black 70.950 and White 90.951 Mk. V: Vallejo Medium Sea Grey  70.870 Mk. VI: Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue 70.899, drybrushed with Medium Blue 70.963 Mk. VII: Vallejo Gory Red 72.011 and Bone White 72.034

So, I finished my 100 (well, 99 technically) pt. Sisters of Battle killteam. These are the new multipart plastic miniatures, rather than the old metal ones that my 15ish-year-old army is made up of. They are quite a bit larger than the old models - another example of the infamous GW scale creep at work there - so mixing old and new figures isn’t really an option. They do look absolutely amazing though, with very dynamic poses and an insane level of detail. I decided not to go with a colour scheme of one of the main orders. After a lot of looking around I settled on Vallejo Royal Purple for most of the armour and Citadel Morghast Bone for the fabric and pauldrons. I’m really happy with this colour scheme, but not so much with my painting skills. I particularly struggled with the robes. I tried to paint some shadows and highlights, but after several failed attempts I just repainted them in the base colour and called it a day. I also was a bit heavy-handed with the drybrushing on the a...

  After this post you won’t be seeing any new WH40K terrain for a while, I promise... To round out my urban terrain I picked up the Frontline Factory Ruins (Windowed) set from a Dutch company called Alliance Armoury . It’s an MDF kit containing enough parts to build four corner pieces (2 one-storey and 2 two-storey buildings). The construction of the kit is actually pretty nifty. Each wall consists of an inner structural layer and a thinner outer layer, which hides all the ugly slots used to assemble the pieces and simultaneously adds some nice 3d details like inset window frames. If I had one nit to pick, it would be that the doors are only demarcated on the outside of the buildings. There are just blank walls on the other side, so you’ll have to add some detail to the inside yourself.    Construction is very straightforward, as long you follow the building order outlined in the instructional video on Alliance Armoury’s website. Basically, glue the inner walls together ...