The 40k Hamateur Hour Presents: Road to Nova Week 5

Hey Hams, welcome back for the fifth installment of the 40k Hamateur Hour, continuing along with a total amateur through the process of getting his first painted army together for Nova 2019. I’m Dan, better known as FromTheShire on dead comedy forums, and let’s see what I managed to get done since last week.

How far behind were you

Too far. Too damn far. Here's basically where I left off

A totally fine place to be about 2 months before an event

How did the week go

Reasonably well, actually. I didn't get quite as much done as I hoped because of being busy and everything taking me longer than I think it will, but it's starting to look slightly like a coherent army. I finally made a decision on what I am using for bases, what squads are going to be represented and a source for the appropriate transfers, and tried fitting together my first guardsmen to see how the Anvil Industry bits sit with the Catachan kit. Overall I'm quite happy with them, although I decided to order some female torsos and arms to go with the heads I got in my initial order.

Scale is definitely not quite right

Male models look great with minimal tweaking

Seeing how the heavy weapon teams will look

Never enough bits

As for the Blood Angels, the base coat is down and the varnish is currently drying on most of the infantry. The lieutenant needs to be finished up, Dante and Slamguinius need to be base coated since I was more focused on batching this weekend, and I need to make a final decision on how I'm painting the ancient. The Contemptor is in subassemblies and the Leviathan is ready for gap filling and assembly.

Didn't realize how blurry this was on my phone. Zenithaled on the left, first highlight on the right

Probably could have gone stronger on the highlights overall

The gang all highlighted

First highlight on the left, second highlight on the right. This one is pretty subtle, you can see it the most on the helmet

Finished with a glaze to tie everything together. I was worried about over highlighting, but seeing the final product I could have gone a little stronger I think

Squads as they sit

Here's where everything sits now - Catachans will largely be on pause until I get additional bits and SHINY NEW CONTRAST PAINTS in for them, so Blood Angels will be the focus. First thing on the agenda for the week is getting the dreads up to where the infantry are, then oil wash the lot, hopefully without fucking everything up forever. Can it be done? Check back next Sunday to find out!