Organizing your work area, pro-level

Are these enough Skavven for AoS?

Happy New Year, everyone! ZeroNyne here. Yes, I've been pretty much off this blog for about 9 months. Real life is hectic, and as is natural sometimes, the blog started to fall away. But no longer will this site be neglected! The goal is two posts (or more) per week. Since I don't really consider relinking or sharing someone else's blog as a post, I'll have my work cut out for me in the new year.

So, have you made any resolutions? I have.

Corsec Magnet Applicator

Once in a while, I will stumble across a product that solves a minor chronic problem so elegantly that I can't figure out why I hadn't looked for it before. These are not wholly innovative gadgets; rather, they are things that have existed, but I just had no idea since it didn't fall within my tiny sphere of attention. I want to show you one of these products.

Holiday Gift Guide for 40k Widows, Widowers, and Moms, Part 1

Hello, fellow 40k denizen. Is your girl or guy complaining about not knowing what the hell to get you for the holidays? Click on the "read more" link below, slide your laptop/ipad/phone over to your significant other, and scuttle out of the room like a 2nd generation genestealer. Now scat!

Adepticon 2013 Part 1: My favorite army, Despicable Me

So I'm noticing that more and more people are blogging about Adepticon, so much so that any sort of summary on my part would be redundant and incomplete. So I thought I'd take the next few posts just to talk about some of the fun stuff I found there. I'm sure even these personal thoughts will be covered elsewhere, but, well, on with it!

I wanted to show you my absolute favorite army I've seen since I started attending Adepticons.
[read on]

TL;DR: Is there coffee provided at the meeting?

This is the third in a series of posts by yours truly with the tag “TL;DR”. As you may have surmised by suffering through my blog these past few years, I write. A lot. And I am quite wordy, so when I write a blog post, I spew forth my ramblings onto the keyboard, and then I edit roughly 60-80 percent of it out. But once in a while, I will write something that cannot be edited down. 

And sometimes, it’s a tedious bit of writing that may hold some value for beginning 40k enthusiasts. So begins my tale that many of you may recognize...

The quiet buzz of people who are merely acquaintances dies down as people find their spots in the small circle of folding chairs, and few folks hustle in shaking off coats that smell of cigarettes and cold outdoor air.

The small, unassuming guy with a receding hairline and math teacher glasses approaches the worn podium, the heavy thud of his boots echoing in this Catholic school gymnasium. It's 7:30pm, and the meeting is about to start. The group is small enough that no PA system is needed, so there is no stereotypical whistle of feedback before he begins, just a gentle throat clearing. [read on...]

Multiplying Necron Scarabs

Inspired by Dark Future and From The Warp (and his second attempt), I decided to start on the scarabs for my Necron force. This was an easy and fun project.

I want to state at the onset that I do not believe in counterfeiting or recasting for profit. I am still using at least one (usually two) real GW scarabs per base. [read more]

Amazing Portable Paint Stations

Spanish Design Studio Animaq has created a line of portable and wall-unit paint stations and airbrush hoods that look incredible. A bunch of models are sold out, and it's not clear if they will be restocked (I can't read spanish, and a lot of their text is embedded).

CHECK THEM OUT

Review Shapeways Autocannon Dreadnought Arms

Well, the autocannon arms from Shapeways arrived, which is oddly topical, since BOLS has a 3D printing controversy posted right now. If you want to know where I sourced these arms, you may want to check out my original post on the subject. The details of 3D printing are beyond the scope of this review, but there is no shortage of information out there on the subject if you want to learn more about it.

The package arrived exactly when Shapeways said it would, and the products were packaged adequately to minimize the effects of shipping. So let's check them out, shall we? {JUMP!}

Bargain Psyflemen

I'm sure I'm the last person to this party, since I'm also the last person in the 40k-verse to put together a Draigowing army. That's right, folks. In addition to my Nids, BAs, and various CSM factions, I decided to put together a quick and dirty small model count army. I already own Draigo, Coteaz, and Stern, so it was a no-brainer to get two boxes of Grey Knights and two boxes of Grey Knight Terminators.
[click for more]

Terv Rage

Why don't you exist, little lady?

OK, so let's talk about something that has me in fits. It has to do with this little lady in the picture (although I'm probably assigning an unnecessary gender stereotype...think penguins and seahorses). Of all the blunders attributed to Games Workshop, this is really the only one that I cannot argue against: the tardiness of the (presumed) third wave of Tyranid models. I know I'm preaching to the converted, but if you want to ride the wave of Black Rage with me, read on...
Click to jump...

And over at MWC

I wrote a little article over at MWC about my Forgeworld arms. Go check it out!

The thing about the Angels Sanguine...

From the Lexicanum:

The Angels Sanguine are known never to remove their masks in the presence of anyone outside their Chapter. Even amongst their battle-brothers, their faces are usually hooded.

So this poses some challenges when fielding a few marines. I have always hated bare-headed models...it just seems really, really dumb. I understand why, but it's still silly to me. So when I realized that I needed to field a sergeant in my tactical squad, I knew I had to modify the AoBR sergeant a bit to make it work in a fluffy way.

This is the sergeant from the Black Reach box:

I only have CSM heads in my bitz box since I've never collected regular space marines before, but I found sort a neat looking one that didn't have spikes or horns. In fact, it looks a bit like a chaplain helmet, but not quite as skull-like.

I dremeled out the head and neck and voila (sorry, this was taken late last night on a cell phone):

Each time I do these little, forgiving projects, my confidence builds, and I want to do more. I still need to figure out the whole mycetic spore thing.

Zoanthrope - ARRRGH

Even the Venomthrope cant make heads or tails of it. The Zoanthrope model is surprisingly difficult to assemble. I've pinned the lower body to the head, and I'm going to have to paint those

Gargoyle Test

Click to enlarge.

The wings aren't really that dark (my light box is boxed up). After all my complaining and reluctance, it turned out OK. I still need to Dullcote all of the Tyranids, but that will wait until I finish the rest.

I ended up pinning the wings, and it was definitely not the cleanest job ever. I just home they don't nerf these models in the new Codex, because they are a PAIN to put together.

"Fun" with Gargoyles

So I thought I would start on a metal model before tackling the Tyranid Battleforce. I found a very inexpensively priced Tyranid Gargoyle blister pack. As I was driving home, I was sort of dreading the prepwork required for a pewter model. There is a lot more filing, filling, and fiddly gluing (sorry, I couldn't think of a word that started with "f" that meant gluing). Little did I know what heartache this thing would cause.

First of all, upon opening the completely sealed, brand new blister, I find that 2 parts are simply missing: one set of arms holding a weapon, and one clear base. I would have returned it, but it's not worth the 10 bucks in gas each way to go back to that particular store, and frankly, it wasn't their fault. So I emailed Games Workshop US customer support. I will post the response.

As if this wasn't bad enough, it HARD AS HELL to assemble. The wings actually attach UNDER the belly, and the two halves form the mount for the base. This wouldn't be so bad, but the pieces don't join in any marginally satisfying way. I ended up resorting to Blue Stuff (like Green Stuff, but...well, you can guess).

It's filed and filled...onto paint!

Painting Project 2: Stratagem pt 3

OK, so I finished the two stratagem. It was not a task without challenges.

First, I tossed the fossil Sculpey into the oven (275 degrees F for 15 minutes). Big mistake. (clicky for biggie)

>Sigh< While the Carnifex skull survived, the plastic of the base did not. Luckily, the Sculpey had set prior to the base literally melting down. A bit of red that I had experimented with on the skull bled through, but it was no big deal. I had one last large base.

 So, to recap, a small bit of Sculpey, an oyster half-shell, tiny crab claw, half of a carnifex skull, and 4 pieces of aquarium gravel (along ith two bases) makes this mess. Obvious mistakes here are all remedied at the  paint/finish stage.

I didn't take a lot of pictures from this point on because my hands were sandy...a very dangerous thing  for a DSLR. So the following steps were taken:

1) Wash Sculpey with a thinned Graveyard Earth.
2) Apply PVA glue (thinned with water) to all Sculpey areas.
3) Reach over to the hermit crab cage and grab a handful of very dry sand...and probaby a bit of crab detritus. Apply to glued areas, shake off excess.
4) Wash the sand with Badab Black wash, then, after it fully dries to set the sand, dry brush with Bleached Bone, Graveyard Earth, and White.
5) Drill the recesses of the skull to make the carni skull a bit more skull like. Paint the claw and skull with black and then white.
6) Dry brush the shell and gravel with white, black, and Gore Red.
And voila!

Oh, those archaeological signal beacons? They're finishing nails with red LEDs glued on top and little yellow and black paint. It was sort of an afterthought after I saw how muted it was overall. I also used a little more Badab Black wash around the skull to create a bit more contrast. (Click below to enlarge)

Oh, and the spiral shells? (Click to enlarge)

The ground cover on this one is yet more crab bedding...I think it's shredded coconut.

Painting Project 2: Stratagem pt 3

A little more progress last evening. I am waiting for a conference call to start, so I thought I post a bit more progress.

So here we have the aforementioned oyster shell, crab claw, and half of an intentionally damaged carnifex skull. I thought I'd try Sculpey over green stuff, since I'm still working on how I want it to look. What I'm wondering, however, is whether the plastic will melt when I put the Sculpey in the oven to set. I guess we'll see.

These spiral shells have been painted primed black, painted, and dry brushed. The colors are all variations of Liche Purple. They are going to be part of a second stratagem. The tips are not painted because a) they are going to be embedded, and b) that's where I was holding the piece.

Next, I am going to bake the Sculpey and see if I ruin a perfectly good large base.

Painting Project 2: Stratagem pt 2

Not a lot of progress tonight due to work issues. I primed some of the shells:

You can see that I've chosen 3 oyster shell halves, a little crab claw, 5 broken spiral shells, a piece of a sand dollar skeleton, and a neat little shell piece with a few barnacles.

I did a coat of white on the skull and claw and did an initial layout, but it doesn't look quite right. More tomorrow.

Painting Project 2: Stratagem Pt1

In WH40k, a stratagem is a token that represents some sort of objective in the game. In the venerable Space Hulk, there is the corpse of a space marine sitting on some sort of throne...very cool. Other stratagem are a bit more mundane: a pile of ammo, a drainage pipe, a small artifact, wreckage, etc.

These are Tyranid stratagem from the awesome warpshadow.com. A lot of gamers apparently use things like bottle caps and matchbooks, while obsessive gamers detail their little counters to museum quality.

So I was looking around my office last night, just cleaning up and watching Adult Swim, when I came upon a box full of shells that the kids collected when we went to Naples, Florida last year. They gathered a TON of shells, many of which were damaged, ugly, or both. Inspiration struck, and my plan is to use a large base and create a Carnifex fossil utilizing an extra head from the Carnifex I just completed (there were 6) and some of the shells that looked alien. There was even a little mutant crab claw in the box! The genetic material in this fossil would be incredibly valuable to interested factions - Eldar and the Xeno-haters, most likely - so this fossil as a stratagem makes a bit of sense, at least.

More this evening as I get cranked up on this.

Painting Project 1 - Carnifex

About 6 weeks ago, when I decided to get into this hobby once again, I went to my local gaming store and just looked around at the various 40k models. I was looking for a model so cool that it would motivate me to both start and finish it. It also had to be freestanding (in others words, cool on its own) in case I ditched the whole hobby after the first bad experience.

Games Workshop lists 12 main factions, each with several subgroups and hundreds of individual models to choose from. "Luckily", the local store had a limited supply of models on the day I went. I ended up going home with a Carnifex. (click for a larger photo)

Pretty cool looking, huh? I thought so, at least on the box. I also bought a bunch of supplies. I meant to do Work-In-Progress pics, but I simply forgot. At th very least, here are all of the parts primed in white and ready for assembly and paint. As with all these photos, click to see a slightly larger photo.

I have to say, a few times into the process, even prior to painting, I essentially gave up. Work was getting very busy, and the kids were getting ready to go back to school. I figured that if couldn't carve out enough time to do this already, this hobby didn't stand a chance. Then about three weeks ago, I took three evenings and blocked out most of the color. I had been scouring YouTube and various enthusiast sites, desperately seeking finishing techniques. I ended up using just a little bit of dry brushing for the black (and a tiny bit of white) on the carapace. when that was completed, I had no detailing whatsoever in the torso, head, or anywhere else that was white. This is where motivation really started to lag. I finally told myself that I wasn't going to have a Golden Demon winner on the first try and resorted to dipping the model. If you are unfamiliar with dipping, it's a quick and easy way to detail all those little nooks and crannies on these tiny models. I will post about that shortly, but everything about the technique is well-documented elsewhere. I will link to my favorite tutorials in another post.

I made a few major errors on this attempt, but I would certainly rate it tabletop quality. I didn't file down many of the mold lines, and the red got away from me in a few places. I also had trouble with the dipping lacquer pooling on the length of the tail and in some of the bony nook, but on this model, it doesn't look horrible. It's also not based yet, but I will post about that later as well.

Without further ado (click for larger):

 

I think she looks pretty neat. The black on the carapace turned out looking a lot more organic than I thought it would. I know that the crab claws are supposed to go behind the scythes, but it didn't make sense to me.

So here are some major mistakes (click to expand):

On the right claw and the head, you can clearly see the mold lines that I didn't bother to file down (stupid), and there are a few sprue bumps here and there, but on this model, it can sort of be attributed to battle damage or mutation. Overall, I still think she came out OK. (click to - oh you know)

By the way, for those unfamiliar with these models, the Termagant in the last picture is the standard 28mm scale. I also need to attribute the color scheme to the rightful inspiration. I was originally going to go with gloss and flat black only in the style of HR Giger, but it would be terrifically difficult to make them look defined, I think. I'm not wild about GW's versions, so I went with a variant of Hive Fleet Moloch. If you go to that site, take a moment and check out all of his other stuff...it's jaw dropping.

OK, so the first project is done, and I've come away with a perfectly serviceable carnifex. Next up, that little termagant came with 4 siblings, and I have 3 Chaos space marines that are primed black on the sprue. This post is long enough. See you soon.