WIP: A new whip for an old army.....

Just a quick WIP of Ghost Ark #1 today. I'm still trying to decide whether or not I like the "old penny" paint scheme; it doesn't quite have that "fresh out of the sand" thing going for it. I may need to use some actual sand.....

=][= MVNDA

Tears of Envy has been showing off some of the brilliant design work that has gone into this project on her excellent blog, which I highly recommend all of you go check out. Apparently there's an affiliated website coming, along with other lovely gothic things.  


While you're at it, follow her, too. She's quite possibly one of the most talented designers I've ever had the privilege to sort of know, and always, always interesting. 


Happy Friday, people. 

Hell Is Other Resins...

The good news is that Anubis is nearing completion. All the brush work on the main model is done, which means I get to go back over it with an airbrush and do some weathering soon. Well, as soon as I get my ancient airbrush cleaned and up to par. The bad news is, while I was priming his wings, the wind picked up the box and, well....

Snap! went the sensitive spar on two of them. This brings us to the title of today's blog. Anubis was crafted from a clear resin that is the most infuriating shit I've ever had to work with. It has a measure of elasticity, yet it shatters. It's rock-hard and doesn't sand well at all. About the only thing it takes to is drilling, but you have to do it by hand, because a Dremel running at the slowest speed will, in fact, melt the resin, giving you a drill bit coated in black, translucent crap. The only thing it didn't do in the mold, apparently, was air-bubble, but there are enough crevices and weird imperfection on the thing that I had fits sanding it down. Oh, and did I mention that the clear resin is EXTREMELY PAINT RETARDENT. Thank heavens I had some Tamiya Mr. Surfacer on hand, because other primers just slid right off. The Anubis kit was a great deal at the price, but in retrospect, I should've passed on it completely.  Once the model is finished, I may even sell it and console myself with the Revoltech (despite the heinous paint job)  or Kotobukiya versions being released eventually. 


Then there's this:

A General Grievous Tyracron commissioned by a client. Overall, the project went well and I'm very satisfied with it, but I wish I'd been able to use a metal Hive Tyrant instead of a Finecast one. Finecast, while being light and fluffy, is also crumbly and incredibly brittle. It has a small measure of elasticity and there were no glaring problems the sculpt, however, it's not much harder than, say, very brittle chalk, and I was nervous every time I had to cut or drill into the thing. Unlike my half-metal version, this thing is not at all top-heavy (a plus) and can stand without the larger base (the client wanted to be able to use it as a Nemesis DK) but man, is the FInecast resin ever flimsy. I can't imagine trying to work with some of the smaller models. 

Now, it drilled well, took to CYA glue and paint like a champ, and generally held the detail from its casting pretty well too. Thankfully, some of the horror stories I've been reading here and there didn't apply to this kit, but nonetheless, there was some chipping of the parts right out of the box. If I'd been assembling it as a stock Tyrant, the whips and swords would have eventually just snapped right off from continued use. Luckily, those sexy serpentine lightsabers are themselves quite sturdy. I have a hunch he'll be primarily a shelf piece, but the client has a working Star Wars army, so who knows? Transport him carefully!

Some hot Grievous vs Grievous action for you. 

Every Jedi's worst nightmare. For that matter, Space Marines wouldn't like two Swarmlords coming at them, either. 


More commission stuff on the way, plus some Necron action (ooooh I can't wait, can you?) Yes, I did order some Ghost Arks. I may magnetize them to work as Doomsday Arks, but if the size factor is equivalent enough, then my Tyrannofexes will simply step (or hover?) into a new gunship role in my Necron army. I'm not entranced with the Annihilation Barge design, so that role may go to my Harpies. Again, it'll depend on the form factor. It looks like one or two of the things I ruminated about waaaaaay back during the Codex: Royal Necrons post are coming true, too.


Happy Monday, people.  

I wish they'd hurry up and....

... cast Daniel Craig as Ibram Gaunt already. Defiance was fucking brilliant and he's not getting any younger. Also with the new Necron models and whatnot. 


Speaking models coming soon, we forge on with Anubis. I'm busy resurrection my ancient airbrush so I can shade his bronzed frame properly.  Also, there's a clone of General Grievous coming and a bunch of other things from commission-land. 

Oh, come ON...

My version isn't even done yet, and they go and come out with this.

It's just so well made, too. 

Man.... I really need to get a move on and finish that model.

9/11

This is what should have arisen again as a monument to the slain. 


Personally, I hate the current memorial. While I get the symbolism, leaving two holes in the ground is an insult. It feels like handing the slime who did this a trophy to hang on their cave wall. After all, they didn't leave a notch in the Pentagon, did they? Hell no. 


Sigh. 


RIP, Donna Hegelmeyer. Your kids are doing fine, but they sure miss you. 

State of (my) Hobby....

Been a turbulent summer so far, what with changing jobs and all, so I've been busily doing life things and sort of neglecting my hobby bench, and more's the pity. So, this is going to be a "what's next" article. Short answer: that ebon chap is ready to be worked on, so a finished Anubis will be the every next model you'll see. Other revisions to my To-Do list include things that are on....


The Back Burner: 
• All Tyracron Projects: I know, I'm sad about it too, but this Fall is set to bring about a Necron Renaissance where (hopefully) our favorite robots won't suck, and that means a (hopefully)  a slew of new parts and inspiration to work from. Plus, let's be honest, the Nid codex sorta got nerfed and that screwed things from a playing standpoint. I will say that I've had nothing but good battles with the Tyracrons, although none of those have been against adversaries with AV 14. 


• Fantasy Projects: At some point, I'll be painting some suitably Japanese-looking cannons to make my Dwarf Samurai army a more fully-filled out one, and then putting it on the auction block. I need the space, and one of these armies need to go. Sorry, Samurai Dwarves, you were my first WHF army, and my first large-scale army project ever, but you have to go. If anyone is interested in a unique, character WHF army, please contact me. Otherwise, off to eBay they'll go. In their day, the did a lot of pounding on goblins and undead alike. Sad Panda. :(


Coming up after Anubis:
• To show you I'm not full of shit I'm standing by my word from a previous column and converting up a Storm Raven. It'll be looking more like our friend the Helghast Dropship:

You remember him, don't you? I'll be splicing his genes with our other buddy, the better Storm Raven design that uses the actual kit:

See all those redeeming features? It's a lovely design and not at all the kind of visual punch in the face that thing you can buy off the shelves is. Remember the pledge also that it's going to be able to swallow a Dreadnaught. Ooooh that'll be a pain in the ass, won't it? But I will not have my Dread frying off all of his expensive Autocannon ammo on re-entry. No sir. 


• Also, my Vendettas are getting wheeled landing gear like their modern equivalents, the Black Hawk and the Osprey. (Not the Valkyrie, which shall remain stock) Now that I'm working at an aerospace-associated non-profit, I get to stare at really, really nice photos of planes and rockets ALL FUCKING DAY (so awesome!) and it hit me that the IG need to wheel things into hangars and such. You need to pull them around when they're not powered up, and to do that you're going to have to hitch your Centaur up and pull the thing around. Yes, in the 40k universe you have repulserlift technology and servitors with forklifts for tits and all that, but it'll look so damn cool, so I'm doing it. 


• There is also another Orbital Frame kit, this one of the Vic Vyper, which is getting joints put in as we speak, but is a long way from being finished. This one may preempt other 40k models, because it's really, really, really cool. I may even resurrect my airbrush for it, it's such a nice model. 


• Lastly, the Emperor's Tarot poker deck is going really, really slowly because I keep drawing an erasing various cards, so barely half of them are done. Producing a sheet of number cards is the easy part, it's the major arcana that are really, really hard. I'm sure John Blanche, the God of Weird Dark Future Imagery, could fire a bunch of them off in no time, but I'm not as prolific as I used to be, because now I am employed and have a third of the free time I used to. 


So that's about it. Things are picking up, and we are again looking flush and getting our life on track. Maybe I'll take that vacation to England I've always been meaning to, and visit you all across the pond, too. Ah, to be able to plan things again.....

Vincent Villafranca

I have seen the next level, and it is this guy. 


Okay, the design of his page is horrifying, but his robot chess pieces? 

Fucking amazing. Click the link and check him out. You won't be disappointed. 


Well, except by the layout/graphics/etc of his website, which is awful. His work is excellent, but man, you'd think the guy could design a better looking website. Of course, maybe he's too busy turning out masterpieces like this to give a flying shit about web design:

In which case, more power to him. 


Happy Friday, people. 

What the crap is going on with Dreadnoughts these days?

By now, everybody's seen this ungainly monster. I'm still on the fence about whether I like it or not, since it's not exactly a new design:

Yeah, that's right. Instead of grabbing a movie design to repurpose (go see Terminator 5 to see where the Dreadknight came from), FW went back several generations to the old Epic scale game and up-sized that thing. Someone loved that ugly little thing so much, they went back and made it the de-facto "old dreadnought, instead of the one we all knew and loved from the early days. You all remember Chuck, don't you? from the 40k Compendium? 

There he is, the poor lil' roly-poly guy. Look at him. Gonna go stomp some Chaos Squats with those two twin-linked bolters of his. Who's the big man? Not you. Sorry, Chuck. 


We're supposed to believe that during the 40k timeline,  Lee Iacocca took over Mars and started cranking out the K-Car of mecha:

Go research K-car, kids. It's a real term. 


There's more than one entendre at work, here. 


Get it? 


Good. 


Personally, I'm glad GW didn't slink away to the movies again. It wrecks the consistency of their design quality--- ooooh right:

C'mon guys. A Glaug from Macross? What were you thinking back then? Even FASA learned that lesson the hard way with the Marauder. You're all over the place with rules, all over the place with design.

Sigh. 

That brings us back to Monstroso, there:

There are some things I like about this model. I feel that it's generally a step in the right direction, I really do. In fact, you can shut down all the current model production lines now, from Rhinos to Stormravens, and art direct everything around the curved, riveted lines of this model. For consistency. 

However, there is a another shade of consistency at work here.  

This design is consistent not with rest of the angular, slab-sided, reasonably well art-directed army. It is consistent with the brand new, hero-focused, special-characters-grant-special-rules bent of the current codexes. There is one message you can take away from this, and it is:

"We envy Warmachine."

Think about that. 

DALEKS ARE SUPERIOR!

Played Necrons vs Vulkan Marines today, and this was the highlight of the match. They took a round to devour his Thunderhammer Termie bodyguard, and ate Vulkan the round after this pic. 


Game ongoing. 2 combat squads, one Assault Squad, and one Dread left to go (that LR is immobilized and weaponless). Updates to follow. 


UPDATE


After swallowing Vulkan, the Daleks engaged a combat squad and proceeded to pummel them to death with their doom plungers. A full assault squad nearly deep struck in, but hit a building. The subsequent mishap roll resulted in them dropping in dangerous terrain across the board instead. Destroyers disposed of that Rhino in the foreground, and the Warrior squad behind them held firm against that Tac squad you can see on the left. 


To make a long story short, a round or so later my opponent conceded. As he was short on units, he was unable to effectively contest control enough objectives. Had we continued, he could've squeaked out a draw, but I think the death of his rock unit (and the delay of his assaulters) dismayed him a bit. I put on my teacher hat and pointed out some  things he did well (covering his Rhinos long enough to make it across the board, targeting/downing my Destroyers with his Rifleman dreads) and some things he did poorly (choosing to assault Warriors in a ruin with his Termies instead of sending them at some Destroyers in the open who were 7" from the LRR).