All posts tagged: dreadtober

Completed Deff Dread for Dreadtober 2017

Despite this being one of the busiest months I’ve had in a long while, I have managed to finish the Deff Dread for Dreadtober 2017. Adding another stomping wonder of Ork technology to my Death Skulls army. I won’t get too much into the RL issues keeping me from painting and posting. But I have struggled to keep up with Dreadtober this year and appreciate Todd for hosting it. For me, painting is a way to relieve stress so I am happy I have been able to get some of that done this month and finish the Deff Dread for my Death Skulls. Ork Deff Dread My other Deff Dread was pure close combat with four arms of bashing goodness. I gave this one a bit more ranges punch with a pair of missiles launchers. There is a certain irony that Orks are the easiest to convert due to their ramshackle nature. But I also feel the least amount of need to do so and the walkers. They already have so much character and fun …

Dreadtober 2017 Banner

Dreadtober 2017 Announcement

Yeah, finally some Dreadtober news for 2017! TL;DR: it is happening, but Todd is hosting it this year! So get ready for Dreadtober 2017! As this is the third annual Dreadtober event, many of you have either participated or at least witnessed the challenge before. Last year I hosted almost 100 hobbyists around the world to build, paint, and photograph a dreadnought type miniature. Over 50 finished their projects and tons more cheered them on. Where to Get Involved for 2017 This year Todd (SincaiN40K) is in charge of the event and decided to create a whole new website over on Blogspot to run it. Heading over to dreadtober.blogspot.com is where you can find out how to get involved and check out the latest updates. He has even set up an email address for the project to make it easier to keep track of going forward. So if you are excited to get a dreadnought-ish miniature built in October, sign up! As for me, I am transitioning jobs at the moment and starting a role and …

Dreadtober Recap and Thoughts on the Event

Dreadtober, a review and thoughts on running the event

Well Dreadtober 2016 has come and gone, but I want to take a moment and look back at what happened during the event and my thoughts from running it.   As some of my readers have gathered from my lack of posts the last two weeks, Dreadtober wore me out both on the hobby front as well as the blogging. While I have no regrets doing it, I needed some time to step away and paint a few models for fun. What Happened For those who missed it, or didn’t follow the full journey, Dreadtober was a challenge to build and paint a Dreadnought-like model during October. Greg started it last year and I ran this year’s event. I ran it a bit different this year by breaking it down into six weekly challenges and using email to communicate with the participants. Starting at the end of September, I challenged each member to plan out their project and state their commitment. It then continued into building, painting, finishing, and photographing the miniature. The results of …

Dreadtober 2016 Completed Showcase

Dreadtober 2016 Showcase

Dreadtober 2016 is completed! I want to thank everyone who participated and those who cheered everyone on. It’s been a great adventure and some AWESOME models have been completed. I’ve been honored to have had the opportunity to host it this year and it’s been incredible to see what everyone has done. So many of your tried new things or pushed yourself to improve something in your hobby. So even overcame school, work, and illnesses to get things done. So congrats to everybody. Gothmog – COMPLETED! This Red Hunter’s Mortis Dread was achieved simply with successively brighter silver undercoats and then washes of blood letter glaze for the red and seraphim sepia for the gold, with some Nuln oil in all the recesses and exposed silver parts. This method can achieve these results in a single night and is a great way to get a Tabletop/tournament quality army ready to go. Blog: sepulchreofheroes.blogspot.com Albie – COMPLETED! Dreadtober was a fun challenge. As dreads are pretty easy builds it was cool to see what custom work …

Photograph Your Mini Challenge

Dreadtober Challenge: Photograph Your Mini

While October has come and gone, and hopefully everyone completed their Dreadtober models, we still have one challenge left: photograph your model. This may seem a bit redundant as each of us has been taking pictures along the way and posting them in the showcase articles. But I felt it was important to take a week just to improve our skills of photographing miniatures, editing the picture, and loading it to your site of choice. Challenge: Photograph Your Model So this week your challenge is this: read/watch some tutorials on photographing your miniatures (some helpful links below), build a simple light box if needed, and take the best picture of your model possible. As you will see in some of the tutorials, you don’t need a fancy camera or photo booth. A white sheet of paper and your cell phone can take some amazing pictures – if you take the time to do it right. So this week, take that time and up your photography game. Result: A Beautifully Photographed Model After four weeks of …

Dreadtober Showcase #4 Painting Completion

Dreadtober Painted Showcase

Ladies and Gentleman, October has pretty much come to an end. This week our participants were challenged to finish their models, completing their Dreadtober pledge. While there is still one week left of the challenge where we will work on photography, today we put our brushes down and declared victory! Gothmog This Red Hunter’s Mortis Dread was achieved simply with successively brighter silver undercoats and then washes of blood letter glaze for the red and seraphim sepia for the gold, with some Nuln oil in all the recesses and exposed silver parts. This method can achieve these results in a single night and is a great way to get a Tabletop/tournament quality army ready to go. Blog: sepulchreofheroes.blogspot.com Albie So the base for my dreadnought is designed after the red rocky terrain of Mars. I started with a blank base and a piece of 1/4″ thick cork. This way the dreadnought will stand over most other models. I broke away pieces until I liked the shape fitting on the base and so the dreadnought could …

Finish the Model Challenge

Dreadtober Challenge: Paint the Details

Let’s finish this! This is it my friends, the final week to paint your models for Dreadtober. Welcome to Challenge #5: Finish Your Model. We are now in the last week of October with the deadline of Saturday, October 29th and the very much, hard stop, never go past it (just kidding) deadline. Up to this point, each of you has been challenged to plan, build, start painting and finish the base. Now it’s time to finish it. Challenge: Finish Your Model This week’s challenge is relatively straightforward: finish painting your dreadnought. Perhaps you need to add weathering, decals, and final highlights. Maybe you need to catch up. Some of you might even be starting just now. Whatever needs to be finished, your challenge is to finish it this week. Result: Your Completed Dreadtober Modeled By Saturday I will be posting the Finished Model Showcase where I hope each of your will have completed your Dreadtober Pledge. We can all rejoice in completing this epic journey together and enjoy the fruits of our tears. If …

Dreadtober Showcase: The Base

All your base belongs to Dreadtober! This week our participants were challenged to build and paint a base for their dreadnought-sized model. Below is the Base Showcase, highlighting each of their progress and how they are doing. Basecoat Painting Showcase Note: Some are copied from last week as they weren’t able to make progress (life ya know!) or have already finished. But I still want to highlight the awesome work everyone is doing. Albie So the base for my dreadnought is designed after the red rocky terrain of Mars. I started with a blank base and a piece of 1/4″ thick cork. This way the dreadnought will stand over most other models. I broke away pieces until I liked the shape fitting on the base and so the dreadnought could stand nicely on it. Then I painted the whole base brown to start. Then layered on the cracked earth technical paint Martian Ironearth. After letting that dry I touched up any spots I missed with Tuskgor Fur, then I drenched the base in Argax Earthshade. …

Dreadtober Challenge: Build and Paint the Base

On to Dreadtober Challenge #4: Painting the Base! At this point, our participants have created a plan, built their dreadnought (or similar) and painted the primary colors. Now it’s time to give it a frame. As a continued reminder, these challenges are only meant as milestones. If you keep your bases simple or super complex, do Dreadtober your own way. As long as you are making progress and having fun, then it’s a success! Challenge: Build and Paint Your Base With the Build your Dreadnought and Paint Your Dreadnought (base colors) challenges, I recommend skipping the base as we would come back to it. Well, here we are! Now it’s time to build up an impressive base for your dreadnought to stand heroic. Then get the paint applied! While I typically wait to paint the base last, I purposely moved this challenge before the Paint the Details. This way, if you get base colors on your dread’s feet or want to add consistent weathering between the base and the model, it will much easier to …

Dreadtober Basecoat Showcase

Dreadtober Basecoat Painting Showcase

We are half way through the Dreadtober challenge and our participants have completed the third challenge: Paint your Miniature (with base colors). As you check out their progress below, keep in mind that each week’s challenge is more of guidance and not everyone follows it exactly.  Some have already finished, others are just getting started! In the end we are all having fun building and painting an awesome dreadnought-like model! Check out their progress below, leave them a comment below, or give them a follow to see more of their work. Basecoat Painting Showcase Note: Some are copied from last week as they weren’t able to make progress (life ya know!) but I still want to highlight the awesome work everyone is doing. Albie 3rd Company Imperial Fists Venerable Dreadnought I’ve made a lot of progress on this Venerable Dreadnought in the last week and it is practically finished! All that is left are the little things. The Imperial Fists colors are tough. Yellow is a terror, but I like the way it looks. Some …

Mentor Legion Painting Guide for the base colors

Painting the Mentor Legion Dreadnought Part 1

Ready to start painting your model but not sure how to begin? In today’s tutorial I will show you how to paint a Mentor Legion Dreadnought with plenty of tips and tricks that you can apply to your own models. This is part two of this six-part series for Dreadtober 2016. Last week I showed you my processes for building a custom model through kit bashing. In this post we do all the main colors, leaving the final details for another tutorial. The Mentors are a great chapter to teach a bunch of different colors as they have white (gloriously hard white!), dark green and red, and I even throw in some yellow to mark them as the second company. Add in the metallics, cabling, lenses, and later detail work I am pretty confident that there will something in here for you. Getting Started We left of last week’s tutorial with an assembled model ready for paint. So the first thing to do is give him a coat of primer. The primer does two things: …

Challenge #3 Basecoat Painting

Dreadtober Basecoat Painting Challenge

This is Challenge #3 of Dreadtober 2016! At this point, you built your model, and now it is time to start the basecoat painting for your miniature. As we progress through the Dreadtober challenge, each week’s goal is to get you one step closer to accomplishing your pledge.At this point, you have put together your plan and then built the actual miniature. Now we move on to slapping down paint. Challenge: Paint Your Miniatures This week’s challenge: paint your miniature. That’s it, just finish painting it all in a week. OK, so unless you are one of those guys who can crank out armies in a day, this week’s challenge is simply to paint the main colors of your dreadnought. Skip the base, skip the details, skip the weathering. Apply whatever ‘base colors’ means to your miniature and painting style, and get it done. Result: A Basecoated Model At the end of this week,  you should have your model painted as many would call Ebay ‘pro-painted’ level. Meaning it has more than just a primer …