Yep, I’ve been pretty quiet on the Dreadtober front. Basically, I joined a little bit late and already had a pile of other models on my plate that I was trying to get finished, and they were ahead in the queue. On top of that, I picked up Shadow of War, because despite the Shadow of Microtransactions hanging over the game, I really enjoyed Shadow of Mordor, even completing it (again) in the final days before SoW’s release. I’ve since spent a good 40+ hours in SoW, which has largely come from the same weekend and after-work times that painting comes from.

So I’ve been doing a little here and there, but last weekend, I noticed that the month was nearly up, and I was in no danger of finishing any of the three models I’d aspired to complete. So… time to get stuck in. Luckily the gloss of Shadow of Mordor had started to come off by that point, and I’ve started hitting the grind wall (please buy an xp boost for this full-price, single-player game!) So it’s not been terribly hard to redirect myself to painting in my time. The focus of most of my attention has been the Iron Warriors Dread, which believe it or not has had a pretty severe overhaul over it’s original paint since the start of the month. Since the scheme is mostly identical, it’s hard to see, but the current model has more tonal qualities in the metal while remaining, well, Iron, and also stuff like weathering, scuffs, heat discolouration, rust and rivets. In fact, all that’s left on it is to complete that Lascannon arm and then some final tweaks on things like lenses.

I pried the Loyalist dread off it’s old “diorama” base, as dead chaos marine just isn’t the look I want on my base for it. It’v every possible that this fallen Word Bearer (probably) will also be pried off the base in turn and turned into something else. An objective marker, perhaps?

How dead is he? How long has he been there? I guess it depends on how undead he was at the point when he had his hat knocked off his head!

So here’s the new base. Yeah, I know – so far, so standard – but this way he’ll fit in with the rest of his chapter, that I also need to get started on upgrading to 32mm bases and finishing in the near future.

The rear view shows where the red cabling has all been replaced by dark copper. What was I thinking? I think I know, actually …it was probably leftover 40k 2nd edition influence! Anyway, it looks much better now.

Plasma cannon hasn’t had much done to it yet. Just some highlighting and shading on the fuel tank’s metal brackets. Back in the day, this was the only way to get a Plasma Cannon (Heavy Plasma Gun) on a Dread – convert the bloody thing yourself! Out of metal components.

As with the legs, the Sarcophagus has had all the red cabling replaced with copper. I also completely redid all of the white, cleaning it up from the unfortunate yellowed effect that it had picked up while in storage for a decade or more. I also managed to drop it on the floor(!), shattering a big chunk of paint off the power plant on the rear, but luckily not breaking the tiles. Old-school Metal Dreads are Very Heavy Metal.

A bit of work on the arm remains to be done. I’m not entirely sure what to do with the shoulder. Chapter badge? Aquila? Something else? I wonder if I can dig up a chapter number for this one?

Then there’s old Bellingham Be’Lekor. Nothing’s been done with this guy – but let’s be blunt – we’re getting to the wire of the time limit for Dreadtober, and if I have to make hard choices, it’s the Daemon Prince that’s getting bumped – not the actual Dreadnoughts! Maybe finishing him can be a stretch goal part of P̶a̶i̶n̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶D̶e̶c̶e̶m̶b̶e̶r̶ ̶P̶a̶i̶n̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶J̶a̶n̶u̶a̶r̶y̶ Painting Decembuary?