PAINTING: Holiday Templars in 30 Days
Everyone loves a challenge, and here in Austin we recently had a few brave folks volunteer to paint up an entire 2000pt army in 30 days! At the end of the month, only 4 succeeded and here is one of those brave finalists: The Christmas Black Templars.
Not only did Bushido Red Panda, crank out this great looking army in 30 days, he did them up in snow bases (expect a tutorial on that later), and a great holiday theme, complete with glowing Christmas lights and wreaths. I’ll let Panda tell you how he did it in his own words:
To Build a One Month Crusade
I was sure to have everything built correctly and primed before the start date. I wrote myself a schedule of what I wanted to have done each week and stuck with it most of the time. Even going so far as packing up my painting supplies and bringing it with me while traveling for Thanksgiving. I was also sure to have my brushes well stocked in case I needed some replacements. I used some suggestions from other painters on how to do white as quickly as possible and decided to use some high pigment Van Gogh ‘Titanium white’. This meant I could cover the black in 3 coats instead of who knows how many with GW white. From that point I just had to put on some good music and stay focused. Also thanks to my wife who let me spend every second of free time working on them. In the beginning, I was having some trouble deciding on a basing type, as well as something that would make the army more personal. I had already started the challenge and needed something fast. I’d always wanted to do snow bases and as the holidays were coming quick, it all clicked at once.
Holiday Cheer
I wanted to keep the army clean and planned to do most of the holiday mods on the Land Raiders and not so much on the individual infantry models themselves. I found some tiny Christmas lights (complete with attached battery pack and switch) and some “wreath” wire which were originally meant for the tiny model towns for the land raiders. Also originally meant for the tiny model towns, some small snow-covered trees, to which I glued some small colored beads as ornaments. My wife made some garland out of the same beads and some fishing line for the birches on the display board. After the contest ended, I also added some holiday themed squad markings on each of the crusader marines backpacks.
~I hope you all enjoy the army as we quickly approach Christmas. Go check out Bushido Red Panda’s blog for even more info and pics on his Christmas Crusade. I have a feeling these guys really mean it when they say “So Be Good for Goodness Sake”!
