Painted Blood Pact Tank! (#6)

Finally painting is complete on my AT83 Brigand for my Blood Pact (counts as Leman Russ, model by Mort). I've lost track of how many hours I've put into this bad boy, but between building, spraying, painting, washing, inking, painting again... It's been a real labor of love.


Demolisher cannon, hull lascannon. Note the scroll on the starboard side.

Front view shows off the blood stains on the khorne icon. This angle nicely shows the rust in the recesses of the tracks.


Port side.


Aft, where a great deal of weathering took place.


Said weathering. Achieved with the sponge that comes in blister packs.


Weathering where the commander and crew climb in the top hatch and access the rear stowage.


Weathering where the gunner and driver climb in.


Weathering, periscopes, airfilter and smoke launchers.


Magnetized weapons swapped for battlecannon and heavy flamer.


Mmmm, heavy flamer.

Planetstrike, featuring a Blood Pact bastion

I took a break from the huge tank project to build a Bastion I picked up. The new Planetstrike book allows the defender to have bunkers, but GW only makes an imperial version, nothing for the other armies. I guess I'm lucky that captured imperial bastions are perfect for the Blood Pact!

I set about chaosifying it straight away and it was easy work thanks to the forgeworld brass etched icons pack I have. This tutorial on working with brass etch really helped me, they're harder to apply than I first thought. I was able to build each section without gluing it to the one below. This will allow me to make the bastion a single story should I desire.


Lower imperial eagles covered with plasticard and marked with a brass etch khorn symbol.


Most of the imperial eagles were filed off, but I couldn't resist going to town with various sized drill bits to make one that's been shot up.


The bastion comes with an antennae array with various imperial markings. Those were promptly clipped off and I tried a subtle approach to showing how it has been subverted. A catachan vox backpack with a small khorn symbol sits on the base and is plugged in using the great metal wire from dragonforge (look in the sculpting and modeling section). The wires are cast from the same metal as miniatures so they're much easier to work with than guitar string, as you can see from the natural flow mine has.


The door of the bastion. The space on the door where I put the small brass etch was the perfect size. It's like they planned it that way...


Overall shot of the back. This side has the most chaos and khorn icons on it. I was glad to finally have a place to put all the large brass etch pieces I have.

Weathering a blood pact tank. #5

When last we saw our intrepid AT83 Brigand, she was bright red like a fresh strawberry. I am experimenting with picking out the details and I like the way the wash of Devlan Mud has dirtied it up. After all, blood doesn't dry red. It dries a dark rust, a brown, and sometimes a black. The wash interacted with the spray paint in an interesting way, spotting up in places and generally taking on a texture that implies pooling and clotting. I couldn't have done it better if I planned it.


Tracks blacked in, turret, hull and hull gun lined with one coat of Devlan Mud.


I love the spotting on the bottom of each of the three armor blocks. The clumps of mud on the road wheels and lower hull are painted black as a base coat.


Close up on the turret to see how the wash has picked out the rivets. Some of its texture may be seen in the glare at the bottom of the frame.


Here's a close up of the texture. To me it simply screams out that the tank is soiled by something more sinister than simple red paint.

Any weathering tips you might have, please post them or links to them. This is my first big vehicle project and I can use all the help I can get!

Paint on Blood Pact tank, #4

Finally, it's starting to look like a Blood Pact vehicle! After several poor airbrush experiences I went to the art store and picked up some Montana brand spray paint. They have a ton of colors, are good quality and come with the ability to switch out the spray nozzle. This allows for wider or smaller, higher or lower pressure. After a couple pictures I'll show you the technique I used.

AT83 Brigand: Counts as Leman Russ, here with Battle Cannon, Lascannon and coaxial Storm Bolter.


The brass-etch chaos star blends nicely on the flank I think.

Ok, I don't have a step by step guide but here's the process I used:
1: Prime entire model white with airbrush.
2: Get frustrated with airbrush and buy rattle-cans.
3: Spray all parts of model black on the underside to pre-shade.
4: Spray entire model dark red.
5: Spray all parts of model bright red (ketchup) from the top to pre-highlight.

Here's a look at the side of the model. You can see it is quite bright towards the top and fades to a dingy red towards the bottom.


See the difference here; the top of the turret is bright red, the sides are dark and the top hull is bright red.


I played a couple games and didn't like using my officer model as a Kommissar so I got to building and converting. It was an unholy conjoining of game necessity and conversion inspiration. I'll leave you with a sneak preview of what's to come:





(Melta gun is from the Chaos Raptors. Being metal it's quite short and works well in the smallerm human sized hands of the Blood Pact.)