Behind the Scenes (Horus Heresy Diorama #6)

Well I honestly can't believe I only started painting this diorama three weekends ago (having scratch built the rhino nearly three months prior!), and the time has certainly flown by. Tomorrow I aim to finish all the small details and reward myself by heading to the local cinema to see "Fury" (promising myself not to buy any Bolt Action models - Thanks John!) before dropping the model off at the store for judging this weekend. I will be working 7:30am to 6pm on the day of the competition but hope to sneak away early if things are slow. I encourage all painters in Vancouver to head down to Strategies on Saturday before 4pm and check out the great selection of painted models. I love seeing all the different projects folks are working on, whether it be a large model or unit for their army, the first model for a new project, or a once off model created specifically for the competition.

So what have I been up to? Tidying up all the things I rushed in my enthusiasm to assemble and paint this ambitious project. I have had to sand the wooden edges with everything attached (including the three Emperor's Children), paint in missing details which were missed before generously applied superglue left no sub assemblies for easy access, while at the same time ghosting a lot of the top of the tank. I feel like I woke up on the wrong side of bed this week! I pulled the top rail off the Rhino so I could paint shadows more accurately, then half the paint flaked off the brass rod and green stuff banner due to handling. I probably have enough material for a "how not to" blog entry on this model alone. A big shout out to my friend Harry who is working on an air-brushed large model entry, I spent a few hours last week painting at his place which kicked things along nicely.

"The internet never shows you the rear of models..."

Now that the project is fully assembled and nearly finished I am only just beginning to realise what weird colour combinations are involved, and how it doesn't quite work as a complete diorama. The same could be said for the artwork, but buried amongst hundreds of other garishly coloured Heresy artwork it doesn't seem as awkward or out of place. I think this is all 11th hour blues, but the model looks as fitting a representation as I could have hoped without resorting to eBay and Forgeworld, along with almost double the paint time to get things "perfect". With the next few projects already taking shape in my head, who has time to wait for the post when you can just build you own?