Armies On Parade 2019

Armies On Parade 2019, entering was just the personal goal that i set myself, celebrating still being in the hobby and getting to hang out with other hobbyists for the day. Neurosurgeons had told me many times that I wasn't expected to be able to paint for much longer, due to the loss of dexterity in my hands from perminant nerve damage. On more than one occasion I was told to start looking for a new hobby!!! I honestly didn't expect to do well by entering, I rarely rate my own work very highly. It was more a celebration of just accomplishing to build the latest models under tough circumstances and still being here and enjoying painting for as long as I possibly can. I'd just had my second spinal fusion surgery in my neck smack bang in the middle of starting preparing my entry, I hadn't got far in the build. I was under a strict weight lifting limit of just 500g for the next 7 months to allow the body to heal. Which meant painting would be tricky when i couldn't lift it up!!! I didn't really know what to do still with regards what I was going to enter! A friend at GW said enter the Titans that would be cool. I had a Warhound nearly done, a Reaver still in bits just before my operation, and a tile with old buildings to put on it, I was recovering from surgery and only managed to paint a very small amount a day. Just getting the Reaver done would be the main challenge, especially not being able to pick it up and hold it normally, everything else seemed an impossible task in all honesty. I had my 4th Ed CRIMSON FISTS that no one had seen, an actual army I could display, but the paint was all old work!!! I felt like withdrawing from entering so many times but I'm too stubborn for my own good. So this is the build blog of that tile!!!

Coming out of surgery this is where I was with the Reaver.

A long long way to go!!!! 

I had just sold all my old cities of death buildings that I thought I'd never ever need!!! So £200 lighter i bought a load more second hand and managed to get two big structures that would showcase the height of Titans!! Also the old stuff was the right scale as the new 40k buildings are massive, scale creep has been a real thing since the Titans came out!!! I think Titans look the most impressive surrounded by the older scale of models. 

The start of my tile, i'd got two big buildings to showcase the scale of Titans, sweeping and clearing a city sector. Primed black ready to go! 

I imagined the Warhound there, peering through this damaged block.

the two buildings being different colours and styles just for visual interest. 

grim dark rust and grime of the 41st millennium.

both Buildings have seen better days!!

I loved adding rusted walk ways...

testing model placement, really happy with scales, I felt like I was shooting myself in the foot using just old models when during 8th edition, the hobby mostly already turned towards the new excitement of primaris marines, but I didn't enter with goal of winning anything, people might be bored of all the old classic mini marines and old models and buildings but they are still the coolest to me! 

This is where things really got serious, why would a ruined city block still have power, underground generators, who knows? Who cares!!! Its 40k!!!! This was the hardest to achieve, after my latest spinal fusion I was struggling with pain anyways but being able to get under the gantries where I needed to be and not being able to tilt my head or twist my spine was brutal. I could only manage a couple of lights a day and it took weeks to get the whole thing lit up. I was still working from bed, but sat on the floor to access the lower floors! Time was ticking away fast!

I loved the lights and how they would add shadows to the tile. I also had to retro flock the tile to match my 4th edition Crimson Fists!! 

Like I said I wasn't expecting to do well, the local standards of painting at GW Doncaster is insanely high, however if we could run the competition in the dark I thought i might do okay haha

I also had the idea of hiding my home made scouts in Ghillie suits all over the tile, 20 of them for people to find! I hated the plastic scouts that came out in 4th edition, with their dan dare chins!!! Imperial guard parts and pva glue and toilet tissue produced cool sniper models i thought 

sneaky beakies

more sneaky scouts!! 

I added hanging wire details for extra visual interest, I really wanted to add fallen debris but had to keep space to actually display an army!!! I didn't think two buildings and two Titans would be enough!!

Warhound stalking through the ruined block! 

my buddy Matt hooked me up with these 3d printed crates that would effectively hide the battery boxes for the LEDS. 

I had no idea how to paint them up until I broke out the Event Horizon special edition dvd!!! Inspirarion is everywhere! 

thats the battery boxes truly hidden away! 

Matt also printed me off these sector closed posters which I thought would look great littered over all the buildings. The Imperium would be rolling through town and anything that moved would be purged with impunity!! 

They did bring a lot to the tile I thought! 

I added a wash to the posters to tone them down and blend them in more! 

the night before the big day, finally got everything done pretty much, there was a couple of ideas I ran out of time for, but it was down to the wire to get this far. Washes on the posters was still drying as i was packing up the Titans and Crimson Fists! 

Big day! 

I have 5 Land Raiders for my Crimson Fists, choosing just one to bring was tough but I've always been proud of this dedicated Chaplain transport! It went down really well on the day! More moody pics of that rolling cathedral of doom! 

Competition was high, I already knew that competition would be high, that said, when setting up and looking at everyone else's work I placed myself dead last. The level had gone up significantly from the year before and it felt like Doncasters best painters had all entered. It was a great day to hang out in the shop all day, chatting to fellow hobbyists, getting to talk about Titans and the Titan Owners Club. Nothing really mattered beyond that to me, I didn't think I'd done well enough to get any of the awards but was just proud to have got that far. I know its what people say but its true, it was a mammoth project and one that just got done at the 11th hour the night before!!! I was proud of just hitting the deadline id set for myself 7 months earlier!!! It felt like just hobby gold, people taking pics of the God-engines, one guy wouldn't leave until he found every Ghillie Scout!!!!!! One guy creased me up that hours after looking at all the tiles and casting his vote he spotted the Warhound Titan!! Its not easy hiding a Titan on a 2x2 tile!!!!!!! I laughed that in that case he had no chance with finding the scouts!!!!!!!!!! 

Then this happened!!

and the icing on the cake, best overall gold medal!! 

To this day I don't understand just how that happened, but I'm really proud of it. With the incredible standard of tiles on display that day it was earned the hard way, and that meant a lot to me. It was totally unexpected but an amazing surprise to the end of one of the best days in the hobby so far!! Also the reward of producing that tile after one of the worst years of my life! 

The Titans stayed for a few weeks on display at GW Doncaster, in itself a proud moment, going into GWs from being 11 years old, I never thought I'd see my work in the cabinets!