Sons of Horus Apothecaries

I finished these late last week so I could palm them off to their owner before I started my new job. That’s another tick towards the Sons of Horus commission work. The only things left to do in the future before his army is complete, are another Contemptor, a Sicaran tank and Horus himself. But I’m avoiding that for now and getting some of my own painting done.

As for these guys, I went with classic white ceramite armour and a black/gold pauldron for later Horus decaling. I definitely preferred the Mark 4 armour, with more smooth surface to get a cleaner look. The Mark 3 was a bit of a mess for the casting, but I’ve come to expect that from a lot of the Horus Heresy resin infantry sadly.

Sons of Horus Cataphractii squad 2

The end of the Sons commission job, thank god! Once the Dreadclaw was done, these boys took me a few hours on the weekend to complete. I’m not sure if the owner intends to merge them with the original 5 I did, or mix and match them as needed, given the diverse weapon options represented. As always, they were super easy and quick to paint.

There is discussion about a few more bits he wants painting, namely Horus himself, but in the meantime, I’ll enjoy just painting my own toy soldiers!

 

Sons of Horus Dreadclaw

I finally finished the damn thing. It was awful to paint as you have no reasonable place to hold it without scuffing up your existing paintjob. And it was fully assemled during painting (not my choice). I let stray brushstrokes, wash drippage and scuffing just add to the general weathering in the end. I also dusted in the martian weathering powder as with the Termite before. I can safely say I will never buy one of these things. And as usual, decals and legion markings will be added later.

 

Sons of Horus Terrax Termite

As I am still working on a Dreadclaw Droppod, and Forgeworld vehicle kits are usually a world of pain to work with, I dreaded this thing. It’s another commission piece and its owner assured me that he had already assembled and even silver undercoated it for me, I was hesitant. Firstly, I was white undercoating everything before, but the Boltgun Silver basecoat made my life easier in some ways. I had to put several more coats of the Sybarite Green on the chassis sections to get a good cover, but that did mean all the annoying silver sections were prepped in advance for me, which actually would have been better on the Dreadclaw.

A second beneficial discovery with painting the Termite, was when I got lazy with the line highlighting, I did some light drybrushing over the green chassis sections with Gauss Blaster Green (the same green I use for the edge highlights), and it gave a good blended bit of fade to the armour that eases the contrast and weathers it slightly. I don’t think it would work as well on smaller figures but on vehicles its a good look. THEN I did the line highlights afterwards. I was liberal on the metal sections with Gloss Reikland Fleshshade, to emphasis the red tint.

Finally, I tried using the Orange Rust Weathering Powder from Forgeworld for the first time. I gave away my weathering powders previously since I couldn’t figure them out, and then discovered I still had this one tucked away. Since the Termite has no base like the rest of the army, the Martian red contrast for the terrain the infantry are based on, needs tying in. So some spot brushing with the weathering powder really pops beautifully with the Sybarite Green.

So all in all, it was a real pleasure to actually paint, and what’s better, it was quick to paint. I was done with it in the same time it would have taken me to do a single character model, so a few hours over two evenings and bam, finished! As usual, the owner will add decals to it after he recieves it.

Sons of Horus Justaerin Terminators

These are Horus’ elite veteran cataphractii, and thanks to their unique colour scheme, they were a LOT more fun to paint that the generic Sons. Their owner wanted them to keep their traditional black, red and gold colour scheme, so they should really stand out on the tabletop. Also I’ve always had a weakness for red in armies… which helps when there are some many damned red armies. And black is the easiest colour to paint since you can plow right in there with highlights after a base coat.

 

Sons of Horus Reinforcements

A long overdue update. I wasn’t terrible productive over Christmas, and then a month abroad in January had me out of commission, but finally, I finished off another batch of boys for the Sons of Horus. This gang includes veterans and potential squad sergeants or captains. Same colour scheme as always, and thankfully pretty quick to paint.

 

 

Then there was another squad of bolter troops in Mark II / III (I still can’t remember the difference):

 

And then a melta Support Squad for anti-tank weaponry (when my friend ran out of meltas, he used some combi weapons to fill the gaps:

Sons of Horus Cataphractii

I LOVE Cataphractii armour, I exclusively use it where possible in my armies because nothing conveys that plodding implaccability better than a Cataphract. Since these weren’t Justaerin Terminators, the owner requested that I keep them to the same basic colour template as the tactical Marines. I was worried that it would look to basic with only the majority colour and highlights, but I like the end result.

Sons of Horus Contemptor

The contemptor body for the Sons of Horus is a really slick little kit; nice bold iconography and a distinct look. I used the Blood effects paint on the red sections to give it a bit more pop. I went heavier with the gold, and discoloured the gun barrels too. Overall It came out nicely I feel, mimicking the basic colours of the marines.

Maloghurst The Underwhelming

So when the original sculpt for Maloghurst was made, it got redesignated as a simple Sons of Horus banner bearer and any chance of a new sculpt was shelved. This was prior to the idea of a “Character Series” that now specialises in named characters. The figure is supposed to carry a power sword, but again, being demoted doesn’t do wonders for your personal armoury, plus he was already assembled at this point and his owner couldn’t bring himself to risk damaging the figure for a weapon change.

I didn’t do anything fancy, same approach as the marines, and a nice night blue/black tone of the Banner material, with a simple stylised eye on it. Also I never tried using Martian Ironhearth on cork basing… It didn’t come out too bad!

Sons of Horus Rising

So to keep my hand in the painting game, especially whilst turbulent work life has disrupted my relaxation time, I agreed to paint a Sons of Horus army in a nice simple scheme in exchange for a Custodes Army. Sweet deal right? The only downside being I now have to paint up a pile of Custodes and resist the urge to to buy more Forgeworld Custodes sexiness.

The scheme my friend requested was super simple:

1. Base Spray them in white to get a lighter, and brighter turquoise (he isn’t a fan of the near “Salamander” jade that darker tones end up in.

2. Base paint them fully in Sybarite Green.

3. Recess wash with Coelia Greenshade.

4. Tidy up with Sybarite again, and then edge highlight with Gauss Blaster Green.

5 Then it’s black shoulders with Retributer Gold trim (and necessary washes/highlights to make that pop).

So here are the first ten tactical marines, with a nice Martian Ironhearth basing to make the turquoise pop. He’s going to add shoulder icons via decal later on.