Dark Angels – Ravenwing – Stat in black

The inertia of the black highlights has been overcome [for the moment at least], although it might be difficult to tell in these pics. The purpose of this post was really to document how long these took, my thinking being if I understand the timescales involved it'll be less intimidating in the future. Unfortunately I'm not sure if I've remembered it correctly but a rough outline should do. I initially thought I'd first highlighted three in one evening but it turned out I'd only done 2. So I believe the progress for each session was thus for first highlights:

1. 2 bikes
2. 3 bikes
3. 2 bikes
4. 1 bike
5. 3 bikes
6. 2 bikes

Essentially an average of 2 bikes a night, although I may well have misremembered days 2 and 3 and actually done 5 in one night thanks to a concerted effort, surely not?!




Interestingly, I noticed one front wheel mud guard edge had not had a first highlight and I just went straight in with the Dark Reaper and I think it looked pretty cool. I may well go down this route with the Deathwatch - higher contrast highlight, with no intermediate making the overall base lighter [and the process quicker]. Which leaves me with these remaining elements [those crossed out have since been completed between writing and publishing this post, yay. Bold items are elements that are big milestone hurdles - potential momentum killers, boo!]:

1. 2nd highlight - Dark Reaper [3 days estimate - indeed it was 3 days]
2. 3rd highlight - pale blue spot highlights [2 days?, actually 3 days, 3,4, and 5 bikes but I think I did them wrong as the highlight looks too pale, so I may need to do some remedial glazing to fix]
3. Black shading - to make them black again and smooth out the 1st and 2nd highlights [3 days, potentially as I managed to shade 4 in one session, around 75-90 minutes, leaving 8 remaining.]
4. Handlebar screens and buttons [<1 day="" span="">
5. Grenades
6. Leathergoods [1 day]
7. Eye lenses [1 day]
8. Ravenwing symbols - white [1 day]
9. Final highlight - bonewhite cloaks [included inbetween other elements 0.5 day?]
10. Verdigris [4 days - day 1 - 1 bike, day 2 - 5 bikes, day 3 - 5 bikes, day 4 - 2 bikes ]
11. Plasma [and we know how fun that can be... 3 days]
12. Red rivets [1 day]
13. Tribal markings - red stripes [<1 br="" day="">
14. Purity Seals [<1 day="" span="">
15. Litany scripts [<1 day="" span="">
16. Company markings - numbers [2 days?]
17. Various targeting lenses

In addition individual models will need:

• Apothecary - vials, tubes, symbols
• Champion - power sword
• Sergeant - power sword and face!
• Banner bearer - banner... oh my lord

And then the 'finishing' bits:

• finish the bases
• bonewhite chips
• Khorne Red/Heavy Red edges
• Mount the models [some drilling involved here]

• Matt varnish
• Tamiya Clear
• Weathering powders
• Gloss varnish [where needed]

To Done! As you can see it kind of explains why I felt this was a big deal [and that was before I'd even got this far] but it is 13 bikes all at once, more than double what I did the first time which was in fact double what I'd intended to do initially. I had the first list as standard bullets but switched it to numbers so I can see how many tasks remaining which gives me a rough timescale, 22 sessions at least, not including the unique guys and finishing them off. Maybe structure and ticking stuff off is what I need as previously timescale estimates have always prompted me to beat them and with a holiday in May I'll still be doing these in June at this rate, yawn!

But for now I have structure and I have a visualisation in my head of the process involved. With this clarity I have renewed confidence and even if it takes longer I can't imagine this project will see me into July which should leave with 2-3 months to complete something else [Assault squad? Deathwatch] at least before the end of the season.