Monster March - Week 3, Shadowsword Complete!

I finished the Shadowsword with time to spare. It still feels like it took long enough though. There's just something about painting tanks, even when you do it quickly. At some point I always come to the realisation that I'm basically painting a house brick with added relief!

Overall, I'm really happy with how the Steel Panther came out. It's actually the first Super Heavy that I've painted for any of my armies, so that's cool too. I'm not sure how much I'll use it in game, as I like to play smaller games mostly, but having it finished certainly fulfils a childhood dream or two. 

Although painting started to feel a bit arduous towards the end, I find with tanks that they really come alive when you start highlighting all the metals and adding the last weathering touches, as it really blends it all in nicely. Using the airbrush was a real life-saver too, or I'd probably still be sitting there base coating the thing. I honestly wouldn't paint a vehicle without it these days. Not to say that an airbrush will all the work, but once you get your techniques down, it can be a real time saver for highlighting, cammo patters and smooth application.

The finished Shadowsword in my display cabinet

Other than the tank, I've built, undercoated and airbrushed the chaos half of Shadowspear as well, so expect to see some units from the set turning up on the blog soon.

With one week to spare till the end of Monster March, I'll have to think of something to do with my newly completed super-heavy for the final update...

Monster March - Week 2, Shadowsword Progress

Work has been continuing at a good pace on the Shadowsword. I finished washing around all of the rivets and other details and did the light drybrush highlight on the whole tank. After I'd finished that stage, I started the laborious process of picking out the details.

Most of the detail parts are still just basecoated at the moment, and I really have a long way to go with them.

In order to get a bit more finish on the tank, and to get an idea where I was going with it, I also added decals to it. I always enjoy that stage a lot, so I couldn't resist. I free-handed a name for the tank on the side of it; the "Steel Panther", and before anyone asks, it is an intentional joke reference to the American comedy glam rock/metal band.

"Become the king of your neighbourhood, like Steel Panther, and Tiger Woods..."

If anyone's interested in how we got to this stage, I did a full step by step tutorial for how I paint my Steel Legion tanks, so if you haven't read it already, it's available here (Link)

That about rounds it up. I'm hoping to blast the rest of the tank out pretty fast now, as I've ordered a copy of Shadowspear, and as an avid Chaos player, I'm hoping to have plenty of time to spend on the goodies within!

Monster March - Week 1, Shadowsword

Following on from my pledge for Monster March, I've been hard at work painting my Shadowsword. This is pretty much where we're at after one week:

Despite looking almost finished to the casual observer, there's still a long way to go. Basically, progress so far was all done with the airbrush, so in terms of time spent, we're looking at maybe 2 hours of work.

The new thing I tried was masking the tracks off so I could spray them silver. I absolutely hate painting tracks with a brush, so I'm really happy that it worked out well.

Other than the airbrush work, I've started the painstaking process of washing all the rivets and gaps with Agrax. It takes a long time, but is well worth the effort, and it has already added a lot of depth to the model.

Once I finish that stage, it's on to highlighting and then the bodywork will be complete. Hopefully I can get that done by next week - giving me the remaining 2 weeks to do all the detail work!