The mojo hit me the other day and I felt like painting a pre heresy Dark Angels vehicle. The problem was I did not have one, or at least not one that is any way near paintable. But I did have the Betrayal at Calth contemptor dreadnought. The model is not really up to the current GW standards and I do not know what they were thinking when they designed it. Just look at the mechanicum robots and you get an idea of what it should have looked like. The static pose is terrible, and the way it is made up, one complete front and back, makes it hard to actually do something about it. Well, as I can not help my self I did do what I could to help it out of its misery. I cut it up where I could, the waist, hips and head, and tried to re posit as much as the model would allow. The waist and hip were just cut and re glue at an angle to break up the symmetry plane. The head was a bit more difficult. The original is staring straight a head and I needed it to follow the hip twist. The head is similar to a marine head but larger and it is part of the front piece so it cant be mounted at an angle. I decided to cut it out and replace it completely.
I had some leftover parts from some death wing terminators so I decided to pimp it out using some Dark Angels parts to give it some flavor. I also used a terminator head instead of the original. It is much smaller but do actually fit quite nicely in the hole left by the original. I also used some of the shoulder plates with the winged angel to create some plastron and knee armor. A shield and halberd head was also added to tie in with the Dark Angels theme as well as a cyclone missile launcher.
All in all I think I managed to give this dreadful dreadnought a decent life but I am not sure about the halberd. Some how I am not sure it fit in.
In the process of painting I also, quite by accident discovered how to elevate my rust painting. And it turned out to be quite simple... just follow my own advice and use three colors..., i.e chestnut and orange inc followed with orange paint. It is amassing how much that third layer adds to the depth and be-livability.
