Just a short update to give you an idea of what I've been up to on the Hellhound and Manticore.

I've been trying my hand with custom transfers, which are pretty simple to do, but require an ability to be very precise with a hobby knife. Either way, they give a nice way of applying names etc without doing freehand work.

The hellhound has been dubbed "Ambustio", which according to google translate is Latin for "Fire". It has also been given the designation H44,  H for hellhound :). I will be adding a Cadian gate transfer to the centre panel's as well, which is why there is a patch of varnish.

The manticore has also received some transferry love. This tank has been named "Nubis", Latin for "Cloud". And has been designated S92. I've been trying to keep the tank names along a similar path, so the artillery relates to each other a bit, my Basilisk is "Tonitrus" - "Thunder". The hazard stripes were made by combining two of the transfers from the Guard transfer sheet.

I told you it was a short update. This isn't all I've been up to, there is more to come, but I want to finish those bits off first. Thanks for reading, and as always comments and suggestions are appreciated.

 A double whammy for you all today. I am currently working on two models. The first is my ForgeWorld Artemia pattern Hellhound. And the second is the all plastic GW Manticore/Deathstrike.

 So to start off with, here is the Artemia pattern Hellhound. I've had this kit for a few years and like others has been sat unfinished. It was basecoated in my old scheme of Dark Angels Green, but I sprayed it with Fairy Power Spray, and left it to soak before attacking it with a toothbrush to remove the old paint. It cleaned up pretty well, with only the light basecoat of Chaos Black remaining, which was good enough for me.

I gave the tank another light coat of Chaos Black spray just to make it even and all the resin bits needed it as they had cleaned up beautifully (probably as I hadn't washed them down properly in the first place - oops!). One the basecoat had dried, I applied Vallejo Model Air Black Green straight from the pot using the Games Workshop spray gun, the results of which can be seen below:

For a cheap (ish) alternative to an airbrush, it did a pretty good job. The coat is nice and even, with no pooling or paint runs. How much of that is to do with the paint itself I can't say. The Model Air range doesn't require thinning. I sprayed the whole model, except the tracks as I'd left them off for ease of painting. 

I did mask up the barrel of the Inferno cannon as it will be easier to paint over a black basecoat rather than the green. I have got a heavy flamer to on the hull as well. If I'd made this model recently, I would have tried to magnetise the hull weapons, oh well. That's how far I am with the Hellhound, now onto the Manticore!

And here is the Manticore/Deathstrike. Doesn't look particularly impressive without a missile, or four, attached to it. The paint scheme is the same as the Hellhound, Vallejo Model Air Black Green over a Chaos Black spray undercoat. I have done a hell of a lot more to this model, which will all become apparent in the next post. Stay tuned and thanks for reading!