My Year in Painting

Looking back at 2014 I realized that I did a ton of painting.  Amazingly all of it was in the first half of the year.  Once school started this fall I didn't have much time for painting.  Now that my league has finished I am going to try and dedicate that time to painting instead of gaming.



Traitor Guard (Astra Militarium):

Vendetta
Bunches of Guardsmen
Manticore
Astropath

I worked on these guys in the spring and really enjoyed the results.  The Vendetta is a fantastic centerpiece for the traitor guard force.  Even though I started working on it Thanksgiving of 2013 it was not actually completed until January of 2014.  It sat on my coffee table for weeks before I decided on what conversions to do.  This army has already won me a couple of painting awards, and hopefully will continue to do so in the future.


Fallen Angels (Black Legion):

Piles of Marines
2 Rhinos with havoc Launchers
Lascannon Predator
Lascannon Dreadnought (Helbrute)
Dark Vengeance Interrogator Chaplain (Dark Apostle)
Dark Vengeance Terminators +1
Dark Vengeance Bikes
Dark Vengeance Librarian (Sorcerer)
Dark Vengeance Chapter Master (Chaos Lord)
Cypher
Helbrute (in case of Daemon Prince)
Marine with bloodletter popping out of chest (in case of Chaos Spawn)

The vast majority of these models were completed this summer.  I had shown with the traitor guard that I could model 'dirty' figures effectively, but I wanted to prove (mostly to myself) that I could do as good a job with 'clean' figures.  Before this army I had never painted black armor, and I figured it would be a sufficient challenge.  For the moment this army is being put aside, but will come out from time to time.  I also plan on using this army for teaching other people how to play.



My Goals for 2015:
First and foremost I have a half finished land raider that has been sitting on my painting table for six months, and a squad of kroot I promised to paint for a friend that have been there even longer.  Right now I am not allowed to get anything new until those two projects are done.

I want to expand my Traitor Guard force.  Right now I am unsure of the exact style I want my army to be, but I plan on starting with some more guardsmen and a couple of Leman Russ tanks.  I plan on converting some flagellants with greenstuff to make it look like they are on fire (there will be a guide on how to make flames with greenstuff).  Once the army gets bigger I want to convert a Glottkin model to be an allied imperial knight.

The largest project I want to start this year is building a gaming table.  My wife and I bought our first house (how did I find time to paint anything other than walls?), which means that I now have a place for a gaming table (right next to the bar).  I have several ideas for different table configurations, but I am pretty inept with a saw.  Fortunately I have several friends who are more skilled, and have more power tools.