Epic Proportions Fourth Unit Completed

3rd Land Raider Squadron, 3rd Company Support "The Flame's Heat"

This Unit was finished before the end of June but blog posts have been coming slowly as of late now that summer is here and occupying my children all day long is back to being a full time job.  These Land Raiders were painted similar to the first squad I completed with a few minor alterations for head canon narrative reasons.  

Some classic red-orange-yellow lascannons for my preferred Middlehammer feel.

The next battle company for this army I'm painting is going to be the Salamanders 3rd Company, so I tried to tie these Land Raiders to the third company since the first squadron I painted up was tied to my already completed 1st Company.  "The Pyroclasts" is the name of the 3rd Company so that's how my head canon was inspired to conjure up the "The Flame's Heat" for this squadron of Land Raiders.  The Pyroclasts use an orange drake on a black shoulder pauldron, so I added an orange bar on under the lascannon on the right side and then placed the black Gothic vehicle numbers on that orange panel.  On the same side I continued my freehand flame experiments on the black hatch doors.  Instead of fireballs I tried flames across the whole door and was more satisfied with the result I achieved this time.  On the left side I used a large white Gothic "3" on the black hatch door to denote the 3rd Land Raider Squadron.  

You might notice that both Land Raider units I've completed recently have empty banner poles.  We are going on vacation at the end of the month and while I don't want to waste hobby time while away, the thought of taking paints and miniatures and brushes is just too much.  So I'll be taking straightedge and some sketch paper and I plan on working on banners for all the upcoming units of both armies while at the beach this year.  Now that I've written that out it doesn't seem like a bad way to enjoy the hobby while away :-)

Even in the heyday of 2nd edition I think this level of unit markings was only seen on Imperial Guard tank companies in the pages of White Dwarf, but after thirty years of painting and playing, I pick the bits and bobs I like and find ways to work them into the armies I'm painting.  Currently I'm working on a full Land Raider Company for the Ultramarines side and hopefully I'll have those finished in time for the end of July update.  Dr The Viking has a new site where you can keep up with all the Epic Proportions challenge fun along with other great posts about WH40k and the hobby.

In the continuing adventure to get light onto my pictures of models, I tried some pictures outside, but I found when I put my lightbox directly in the path of afternoon rays of sunlight it produced a supernova like reflection of light that hurt my eyes to try and photograph.  It also effectively washed out all the highlight work as well.