Dreadtober is an annual painting challenge that runs every October. Much like Zomtober, I’d been looking forward to it and using it for motivation to get some stuff done.
Also much like Zomtober, (and Orktober!) I forgot about it this year because of the rolling shitshow dumpster fire that 2020 has been until the last minute, so I didn’t sign up over on their main page. In fact, I had only a few days to try to complete something – so I chose one of the Dreadnoughts I had planned to paint for this challenge in 2019. And it was still in the exact same condition as the photo, too!
Yeah. Basically that’s it. Sprayed gold, nothing on the base, a touch of steel and blue on the arms. So it was time to kick things into gear.
Luckily these old-school Casteferrum Space Marine Dreadnoughts are pretty simple to paint, really – and these AOBR models are even simpler, as they omit and condense some of the extra details found on the various multipart kits. I did need ot finally pull my finger out and make some Celestial Lions decals along with some others I’ve been needing for other projects, which took a good part of an evening.
Generally speaking, I kept the paint pretty simple. As well as the orangey-gold I use for the Lions and the steel, there are some coppers and a bit of discolouration on some of the elements. A Black Templars decal respects the previous custodians of the Ancient’s suit.
The model was still a little plain, so I also added some heat discolouration to the Assault Cannon barrels. That arm of course is from the Ancient Dreadnought kit. Since I try to avoid gluing Dreadnought arms on if poissible and this one isn’t a great fit, there’s a blob of blu-tac in there as well!
Since the Celestial Lions Chapter has a pseudo-African heritage, I also did some freehand on the right greave, and gave the Ancient an African name (from someone I know IRL). Also a nice shot alongside a Primaris Lieutenant and a flame trooper.
And that’s it!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Excellent looking dread mate, the extra detail with the freehand and the heat bloom adds great points of interest to the model
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Cheers Dave. It’s gotten me enthusiastic about tryng to get some more Marine stuff done. I started building some Rhino chassis and I’ve got the magnets out as well. It’s certainly been awhile, so we’ll have to see if I can keep my enthusiasm up for long enough to get something finished…
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I’ve just set a unit painting challenge if that helps motivate the painting of some of your marines
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I’ve actually painted three of four units of Zombies this month now (because zombies are rough, ready and easy), but I’ve been way too busy and dazed to post anything up – not to mention keep up with everyone’s work or even do my own comments. 😡
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Nice! I really like the blue and gold together. 😀
I’m right there with ya on not being as ready for a creative challenge until the last second because of the hot mess that is 2020. I really didn’t think I was going to be participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but I’m gonna give it a shot at least.
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Thank you, IM! It’s a nice looking scheme for sure. I’m working on a few more of these guys. Or more accurately, I picked a few of them out of a box after the basic gold was done to work on them a little more… 🙂
I’ve read about NaNoWriMo on your site before, but forgotten what the Na means but the rest must be November Write(ing) Month?
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You’re very welcome! 😀
And, yeah, you would think that at least one of the N’s in NaNoWriMo would mean November, right? 🙂 (I know I did when I first read it.) It actually means “National Novel Writing Month”. Apparently they just like to throw us all off by making it in November. 😛
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Huh. Well why not just keep it simple and call it NoNaNoWriMo then? Sheesh people are strange!
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Beautiful work, mate! I am running DreadTober this year, would you be happy for me to share on the DreadTober blog page; I am piecing together the final post tonight!
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That would be great, mate! 🙂
Hopefully next year can be a bit better than the last two and I can get on board properly from the beginning. (amongst many other things!)
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Ooooh, that is really nice! 🙂 Despite not doing GW stuff, I’ve always liked their dreadnoughts!
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Thanks John! I’ve always had a soft spot for them myself as well. Now I need to make up for the many yeras of barely getting any of them painted!
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Lovely job mate 👍👍
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Cheers, Alex – thanks!
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That looks excellent, especially for a ‘pulled out of nowhere at the last minute’ paintjob. I especially like the heat (?) markings at the business end of the assault cannon.
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Thanks mate. The truth is there’s just not that much to the model – which makes my slow painting of the thing that much worse! 😮
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DrrrreeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaddNaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuught! OMG mate, I can never get enough of these units, the lore on them, I fucking love dreadnaughts! and it has an African name? that is special even to me. It originates from Belguim aparently. But still nice dedication there mate.
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Wow that’s very interesting. I wonder if it’s a Romanisation-spelling of his traditional family name or if it’s a vestige of Belgian/European colonialism in Africa? Maybe both? (I have a Māori friend named Aramihia who studied in the US for awhile, and they just called him “Omaha”).
I’ve got another, definitely-african name for the next one though – from a friend at work! 😉
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Nice. Africa as well as South Africa was visited a lot bythe Europeens in its formative years. So it is highly likely
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As always beautiful work, I know absolutely nothing about GW “law” is this an official chapter or one of your own designing?
Cheers Roger.
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Thank you Roger – It’s one of theirs – a minor one but one I chose initlally for speific reasons as a dedication.
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Sweet looking Dread – love the freehand. Congrats on your results!
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Cheers mate. 🙂 Much appreciated!
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That is amazing – really great work.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thank’ye, Pete! Very glad to have completed it finally! 🙂
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Always loved me a boxdread and that came out well. Love the freehand on the leg and all.
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Those colors really pop on this model and you did a great job getting the gold to go on smoothly for the dreadnought. I’m not familiar with this chapter but I think you picked a good one as it looks fairly easy to paint but will also be visually striking on the tabletop too.
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A fetching dreadnought to be sure. I really am impressed with several aspects of this beauty. How did you weather the oxidized steel? I do like the decals too.
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