WH40k: Cadian Rough Riders

Hello again faithful readers. I am going to present to you today the reason I had to post a filler post the other week. I have finally finished the Rough Riders.  I have posted several work in progress posts on these guys in the past, from the time I built the first guy to the time I painted the horses.  Last weekend was the Buffalo Beef and Wing Brawl.  A local singles, highlander tournament held by a the Beef and Wing game club.  It's always a blast and this year it was the only tournament I attended.  So, I finally had a true reason to push these through as painting is judged.

The entire squad.

I have always wanted to have a cavalry squad, despite how poor they are cost wise.  Point for point I am better off using something else, but it's guys riding horses in the year 40,000 anf they have explosive lances.  They're just too 40k to pass up.

Standard bearer and Sergeant.  No real rules for the flag but hey, it looks  cool.

Painting the horses was a challenge as I have never had to paint anything remotely similar. I tried to add variety with the sergeant having the fanciest looking horse.  That said I feel now I could have done a better job.

These guys are also holding their pistols. One has a wounded arm and the other a bionic hand.

One thing I think I have improved during painting this squad is the process for infantry flesh.  I wrote down what I did so that I can repeat it and I think that of all of my squads they have the best flesh.

Magnetized riders with lances.

Two of the riders have megnetized arms allowing them to carry their lances, meltaguns, or plasma guns.  I scratch built all of the lances from some skeleton spears and plasticard.  The legs I bought from Curious Constructs.

With Melta guns.

I did a bit more chipping and gouges on their armor than I have in the past.  I hope that this helps to break the monotony of their flak jackets and helmets.  With my guardsmen I tend not to go too crazy on detail.  I save that for special characters and the like.

With plasma guns

Going forward I think I am happy with how the troopers look, but not so much some of the horses.  I will probably paint my remaining guardsmen in this fashion.  However, once I start on my mechanicus troops I will either use my airbrush to do zenithal shading or wet blend them for a much more finished look.  The focus of my guard is always the tanks and characters.  The endless masses of troops should just blend into gray.  Thanks for stopping by!

WH40k: WiP Cadian Rough Riders

It's been awhile, but the blog has finally caught up to me.  I don't have a finished model to post this week.  That's not to say there is nothing!  I have here a long in coming squad of Cadian Rough Riders squad which I have been working on for a rather long time.  I started converting the first one in 2012!!!  You can see a post about that HERE.  I've posted about them here and there since then, but now they are finally getting some much needed paint!

Not being a Fantasy [R.I.P.] player, I've never had to paint any horses before, so that's where I started working here.  I finished them in April or so and then having to do base layers on the riders has caused me to stretch out painting them ever since.  I loathe doing base colors.  Today I finally finished the base colors and even threw a wash on. I hope to keep rolling along and finish them by next week.  That way I can start a new project before the next blog post.

I think I have mentioned it before but they are going to be magnetized to allow for some variation, if I ever use them that is.  Stay frosty!

July-August Update

Been slipping on updating again, but not on working!  Since the last update I have been pretty darn busy!  I painted a bunch of BFG cruisers after I finished the Knights.  Then I built my Hydra kit, with a few added details and modifications.  After that I finished up my rough riders after I found some legs to use from Curious Constructs.  After that I finished up my Salamander Scout Car.  More recently I have been working on something special for BFG.  A dreadnought class vessel which will be called Triton, I'll hold off on pictures on this for now, but once I finish roughing out the main components you can expect a post.  Lastly I finally got some of the new Rebel fighters for X-Wing today and decided to try a new theme, sorta German Luftwaffe inspired color scheme.  You can see the test model on the Headhunter below, after the break.  

Rough Rider

Here's a little post of a bit of converting I have been up to.  This is my first Rough Rider of what will be a  squad of 10.  Last month I bought a 10 man Cadian squad and 2 sets of Medieval horses from GW.  I started out by picking the set of legs that was closest to working, then I had to do a lot of cutting and shaving to get them to fit.

Here you can really see all of the material I had to remove.

Then, I had to fill a lot back in with green stuff.  While that was still pliable I started on the torso because I also had to sculpt the hand holding the lance.  I filled in around the neck and all seams on the horse as well.

For the lance tips my brother gave me a bunch of skeleton spears and I took the plainer looking type to use. Much more imposing with a spear tip on there.

Behind the point I added a small box with a light and a wire leading to the point.

That's all on these for now since I do not want to repose and sculpt all of the legs I will be casting copies of this sculpt to use for all of them.  Just ordered some silicon and resin to do so, should have it soon.  I will also make a mold of some of the BFG stuff I have scratched.