2nd Edition Army Challenge: Master Gabriel of Deathwing TO-DONE!!!

 

Hi folks,

The goal of the 2nd Edition Army Challenge is to paint 200 points of 2nd Edition goodness every month until January, with one month free to accomodate the way real life tends to jank with these kinds of challenges. That would give as a 1000 point army ready to play with come January. This month, I planned to paint my commander, a Master of Deathwing armed with a stormbolter, auxiliary grenade launcher and lightning claw. I knew I was going to be a little under the goal of 200 points, as the Master clock it at 148, so I resolved to retouch my old school heavy plasma Dreadnought to fit the army scheme as well. To complicate things, August happens to be the last month of my yearly Hobby Season, which is full of last ditch efforts to tick off projects I had planned for the year. That in mind, I really pushed myself to get the Master done in my ~ 30-60 minutes of free time every night. If you have been following my #hobbystreak on Twitter or Instagram, you would seen the progress over the past couple of days. Here is the final product!

The paint scheme is really, really old school. The stark white for Deathwing was really introduced during the Space Hulk expansion and in some artworks; by the time the dedicated figures for GW had been released they were already shifting to the modern bone-white colour. I am seeing more and more old paint schemes popping up in the current edition, so look forward to painting some of the newer Terminators in this scheme.

I was a bit jealous of all the people painting stripes in the challenge, so managed to fit one in on the left side of the storm bolter. You may think that is a strange place to put a big red stripe... but I have reference material suggesting it was a good spot...

The Deathwing symbol is a decal from a huge sheet I was given as a gift many moons ago. It is the gift that keeps on giving. Some decal setting solution helped soften it to fit the pad. The feathers were painted in my usual green/red fade, instead of the white/red/black of the GW scheme. White white already in the scheme, I wanted to double-down on the spot colours. With green robes, I also painted the stormbolter black to avoid it blending in. I may end up doing this with the other stormbolters as well (which would usually be green).  The auxiliary grenade launcher is a piece of sprue from my X-wing model!

I love how the lightning claw turned out; even if the join isn't the neatest. That conversion is over 20 years old, so I was loath to fix it up for the sake of nostalgia. I always wanted to painted my Deathwing claws red, but never had the guts to do it; now is the time!

The flock on the robes is loose and I'll be brushing it off. I probably should have done that before taking photos, but there is always something I forget before taking photos :-)

So, 1st month of the challenge is done in record time, leaving some room to paint some more Space Hulk figures before the end of the Hobby Season. Considering the detail on the Master, with the addition of the Dreadnought, I am really pleased with the progress so far. It will be interesting to see how I go next month when I start work on the squads!

See you across the table,

Marc