Details

My Blood Angels army is fast turning into a Ravenwing/White Scars style fast attack army. The number of bikes seems to grow daily, and it's totally unintentional. Honest.

But to keep up with the new creed, and to add to my lousy character count of 1(!), my Blood Angels have recently acquired a Chaplain on a bike.

I think the Bike model itself is great. I'm probably the biggest fan of the old Vincent Black Shadow style bikes you could find, but the new ones are pretty damn fine too. My one problem is they tend to look a bit squashed. The size of the wheels means it all looks really fat and bulky.

The Chaplain bike comes with some great accessories, I especially love the helmet/book assembly for the rear and the holstered pistol. I wasn't planning to change much on this model.

The first thing I wanted to change was obvious. I needed to thin out the bike a bit, and following a rather cool dirt bike/SM Bike cross I'd seen in WD a couple of years ago, I wanted to extend the front forks.

The trouble with this was I either did a few complex cuts and make the whole thing a bit weaker (still don't have a pin vise), or put in square ended pieces and rotate the front wheel. This looked ok but it meant the rear of the front wheel arch was close to the ground.

So to remedy both problems I decided to have the bike pulling a wheelie. Unfortunately my pinning skills are limited without the right tools and the bike kept falling down. So I've had to prop it slightly, which means the base will need heavier detailing than I'd usually give, but I think it will work.

I was somewhat worried about the balance of the bike, with it leaning back and the Chaplain already standing up. However the model allowed enough freedom of adjustment without conversion to let me lean the model forward enough.

This also had the added bonus of giving the model a touch of the Lone Ranger. It looks more like the bike is rearing than the rider is pulling it up.

My painting skills are improving all the time, and I think this is one of my better models. The front faring was a bit of hard work, in the end I resorted to painting it gold then drybrushing white over the top of the feathered parts. I'm pleased with the riders helmet, and I think the model works well enough. It's certainly the best model in my BA army.

As you can see there are still a few finishing touches required, the banner, the army insignia and the other decals, and the base needs detailing. But overall I'm pleased with this. Especially as I got the base model for a bargain price to start with.