Death Company Drop Pod

My current project is to add some unity to my entire army. I have been losing points in painting judging lately because A: My army is not finished... I have done so many changes the last few months that I have let my painting slip and some of the models are hurting. And B: More importantly, my army is in discord. My style has changed so drasticly over the last year that models I painted a year ago no longer look like they belong with the models I did a few weeks ago. I have three Baal Preds that look like they were painted by three different people! Some tournaments have army theme as a major part of painting scoring, and I think that hurt me at Mechanicon for example, and my shoddy rush work definitely hurt me at the last BFS tournament.

What am I doing to fix this? Well I am putting in some major love time to get them done and finished with some unity. Last spring when I did my Honor Guard and angel winged predator I added a checker design to all the models to give them unity. I decided to go with these checkers on all of my armor. Starting with my new Death Company pods I'm going to work backwards and bring all of my models into unity with each other.

So here is a quick bit about one of my Death Company pods.

First off, how to paint it.

These were actually painted red when I was using them as normal dread pods. So I sprayed them black using Army Painter black primer, which is the best I have found by the way.

After trying a few grey combinations, I decided on using Fenris Grey Foundation paint as the first highlight and I hit every edge with it. Then as the second highlight I used Codex grey, and as an extreme I used Fortress. I went with Fenris because it is a very cool grey and I wanted to add some subtle blue accent to the army when it is sitting all together on display. It wont be obvious, but the blue will help the eye relax while looking at all that glaring red and orange.

Having done that, I cut out a stencil X and used it to put the same X on every door. I painted that with mechrite red, then did some blending from Red Gore, to a red that I mixed using scorched brown to blood red, and I highlighted the edges with Blazing Orange and Fiery orange.

Then I did some re-entry paint wear. Along all the edges that face the table, I used some Boltgun Metal and just dabbed the brush on the edge, letting the paint thin as I dragged it up towards the armor plate.

That brought me to the checkers and danger stripes.

Danger Stripes first.

I have always wanted to do these on a pod, they look great on the box, but have hesitated because more often then not when you see them attempted on guys pods, they are messy and dont work.

So I got out my little hobby ruler and went to town. I measuerd down the length of the door, marking off segments that would become the lines. Using the same measurements, I did this for each door. Then I free hand painted the segments with Iyanden Darksun. Painting a straight line is not for the faint of heart! This is the part that makes or breakts the danger stripes. But one thing that allows me to paint to a good level is a steady hand and I make good use of it. So after painting the darksun, I paint the bottom half of the line segments with Blazing Orange, then I layer in more yellow using Golden, then sunburst then Lemon Yellow by Valejo as a highlight then white on the extreme top edge. I work the color down from the top to the bottom, covering the Blazing orange but leaving it visible with thin layers.

I repeat the same steps on the checker pattersn on the fins. I used a 3/10 inch square and measured them all in, making the same exact squares on each fin. They did not come out perfect because it is actually very hard to hold a squirmy pod, metal ruler and pencil, and make marks at the same time. After laying out the grid I used the same color combo, but omitted the blaziing orange. Though I might add it in on later pods.

So there you go! That brings you up to date. I will post more updates on the progress of the pods, but watch my youtube channel for video!

What have your experiences been with painting hazard stripes? How bout mixing painting styles in your army?

More to come...

Jawaballs

Here is some video: