Blood Angels Contemptor - Part I

 

I see a black model and I want it painted red.

The last of the my plastic Contemptor Dreadnoughts (for now at least) is assembled and re-posed. The adjustments made are rather more progressive than previous attempts, but also more straight forward. I've purposefully taken a photo after priming so that it can be seen how it might look when painted and more cohesive rather than all the different putty and plastic colours confusing the imagination.

Right off the bat I'll admit there is more that could have been done to this model. I didn't change the position of the torso relative to the "hips", so it looks kind of weird when viewed straight on. I debated this for a while before deciding that watching a massive mechanical monster charging was bound to look strange to begin with, and I didn't want to spend half the year perfecting the pose and not painting it.

This charging Contemptor will be paired against the original Sons of Horus I painted up. It was always my intention to have that be part of a duel, although given the defensive stance of the Sons of the Horus combatant, the Blood Angels clearly have the upper hand in this fight.

As usual the most difficult part of everything is the left thigh. I had to completely rebuild that, and after painting it will show. I think I've done a better job than last time, but there's still a ways to go. When using putty I've determined a few aspects that definitely help:

• Build up one layer and let it completely cure before adding any further layers.
• Don't be afraid to mix layers of milliput and green-stuff. The latter seems to adhere better to the model, where the former gives better detail.
• Put putty into a sealable bag, pushing out as much air as possible, and keep it in the freezer. I learned that one from Juan Hidalgo's Youtube videos (seriously, go check them out). It makes it so much easier to keep going whenever there's free time, rather than needing to mix new putty every session. Not sure where he learned it from, but that's where I found out about this trick.

The right arm is also slightly readjusted from normal to allow the power fist to be used (the upper arm was originally for an assault cannon) and to bend it in towards the torso more. This gives a better running pose for very little effort. The other arm was entirely untouched.

The right leg is angled slightly different against the body, and the "toe" was cut and carved back to give give the "foot" more of a bend and impression of force being applied as part of running movement. Actually this was more difficult than it should have been, but well worth the effort to sell the idea of motion.

My original thought was to have the left leg raised slightly into the air. That really did sell the idea of momentum, but I ended up abandoning that when I couldn't get the miniature to stay properly on the base. It was simply too heavy. So instead I had to build up rubble and rocks to get both feet touching the ground. A minor annoyance really, but these models are more about learning and having fun rather than entering into competitions so it's not all that bad. I also had to pin both feet in place - the connection points to the base weren't large enough for plastic glue to hold it, so out came the paperclips and drill bits.

The head I could have left alone, but with so many spare helmets I decided to add something distinctly Blood Angels. A normal marine helmet is smaller than a Contemptor "head", but I figure it probably doesn't contain anything more than sensors and input feeds to the actual Space Marine entombed within the body anyway. I could have bulked out the helmet more, but really I could also just be more clever with painting to not draw attention to size differences to other models.

And there we have it. Three Contemptor Dreadnoughts now awaiting initial airbrush work as the Year of the Dreadnought continues.

-- silly painter.