Jewel of July: The Angel of Disease

A Jewel that needs some serious cleaning and disinfecting this time, not so shiny as last year's.

While he may not be as objectively impressive as my KoS, I'm just as happy with him, because I've had this Conversion in mind since I first saw the Nightbringer C'tan, back in '02. I wasn't able to find suitable wings for almost a decade, tho, when the WHFB Cockatrice was released. The switch to Finecast also helped immensely with the project, both in reducing the difficulty of trimming down the bits and in greatly reducing the weight, letting me support him on a surprisingly thin bit of brass rod.

It took even longer for me to get hold of the necessary parts. I think I had him assembled and primed by sometime in 2014 or so, and I know I had the paintjob done to a usable state by the time Daemon Summoning was a big thing in 7th Ed. But it wasn't until this past weekend that I finally knuckled down and finished him up. All the work on the Gellerpox Infected really helped, since one of the reasons he'd fallen by the wayside was that I was having trouble getting the skin the way I wanted it, particularly on the wings. It's still not perfect, but it's close enough.

The staff was originally intended to be the Black Mace, but that's no longer an option for Daemon Princes, so now it's just a rod of office or something, and he counts as having two sets of Malefic Talons. Now, my Relic of choice for a Death Guard Daemon Prince is the Suppurating Plate. Since he's really not modeled suitably for that, I call him the Host of the Withering Contagion, which is completely different fluff-wise, but identical rules-wise!

I just got my light box set up again last night. I decided to go with the white background again for a while, but I might have to go back and re-shoot these on the black background, since they got kinda washed out, and then the base is so dark that it's hard to make out much. Speaking of the base, I also just realized that I forgot to clean up the rim, and I meant to do a teeny bit of black drybrushing on the entrance wound on that one skull.

I'm pretty pleased with my greenstuff work covering up the joins between the body and wings. It was crap while I was trying to actually blend them smoothly together, but once I decided to just extend the robe to cover the gaps there, it went pretty smoothly. I think the little bits are supposed to be scales, but I decided to do them as little buds of new feathers growing in, with the flesh all reddened and irritated around the areas where they're either coming in or falling out. The dead dude on the base has orange trousers because that's my standard 40K civilian clothing colour. I should probably also do a little more work on what's left of his shoulders, but it may or may not happen.

I'm sort of getting back into the swing of painting again, helped by the shock of "Holy shit it's August already OFCC is in like 2 weeks and I still have most of my Army to paint". Hopefully that will help me build some momentum, and I'll be able to sustain it better now that we're all settled in here. Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Rot and Rust in Progress

So, yeah, moving sucks. Gradually getting back in the groove here, but the hobby area ended up not working out as planned, and the best place for a backup hobby spot is still in flux for a while to come as well. Similarly, I don't have my light box set up again yet, so the pics are kind of crap, but I wanted to get something up, try to get back in the habit of another hobby aspect. And I have been making some progress, just not actually completing anything. Most recently, a bunch of Nurgle stuff, most of it for the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge this summer.

I've got a couple of trios going here, with the Blight Haulers so they can cover more area and also get the +1 BS, and the Predators so they can get off a Killshot. Well, hopefully at least, on both counts. It's entirely possible for either group to lose a member before I get a chance to shoot. Also, the threes grouped like this bring to mind the Mark of Nurgle, so they feel reasonably fluffy as well.

I'm almost done with the modeling on these BlightKing Terminators. And no, that's not a typo. They're a mix of parts from the BlightLord Terminators, the Putrid Blightkings from AoS, and some regular Chaos Terminator/Terminator Lord parts. Still need some more putty work, but not much, magnets on two more Combi-Plasmas, and some fiddling with the base on the Champion with Flail of Corruption.

This last one isn't actually part of my planned OFCC Army, but since I was stippling browns and oranges all over Vehicles anyhow, it was easy enough to add this guy to the line-up. It's a Scuttlebug Transport, from Miniature Scenery, just about perfect to use as a Rhino. Their Chaos-ish stuff isn't that great, because they can't really get the fine detail for spikes and such from MDF, but it still looked cool enough, and was cheap enough, that I decided to grab one anyhow. I also got a couple of their Terrain kits (I think I posted at least one of them. It was a couple of years ago.), and I'm really happy with those.

Here's hoping my next post both comes sooner and has more finished stuff, but regardless, until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Moar Slaaneshi Conversions

In addition to my Keeper of Secrets and Noise Marine Dread, there were three other Conversions that were the driving force behind making the Slaanesh Army I took to OFCC. Everything else in the Army was basically just there to let me use these five Models, and/or fill up Points.

First up is this Chaos Lord on Steed of Slaanesh. I'd been wanting to use that Steed Model for a 40K Chaos Lord ever since it was released back something like 15 years ago, and finally got around to it:

I wish I'd had some more time for it. The Steed in particular could have been substantially improved by a wash and then bringing some of it back up to Rakarth Flesh, and there was more detail I didn't get around to picking out in gold. The only thing that really bugs me, tho, is that I didn't get the edge of the base finished off, which was a common "theme" with this Army.

He got massively overkilled in most Games, because the Model ended up looking much more impressive than his statline actually justified (He's essentially a Chaos Lord with Jump Pack, Power Sword, and a couple of minor stat buffs), so people would line up an attack on him suitable for taking out someone like Abaddon, and then splat him with the first third of it.

Next up is another that I wanted to do since I first saw the base Model. The amount of conversion required here was actually very minimal, basically just scraping off some detail, and replacing the feet and one hand.

Really, most of what went into changing her from the Yncarne to a Daemon Princess was just tweaking the colour scheme, and even then, a lot of the colours are in the official colour scheme for the Yncarne, just used differently. Again, really could have used one more round of wash and highlight, and some gem effect paint on the spirit stones, but I'm still really happy with how she came out.

One of my teammates, who has an Ynnari Army himself, just about lost it when I unveiled her, totally pissed that I'd turned an Aeldari Avatar into basically its exact opposite. Which, honestly, was pretty much the kind of reaction I was hoping for. Chaos should disturb people.

Finally, we have The Vindication of The Devine. (No, that's not a typo. House Devine was the first Knight House to fall to Chaos.) Blending together some rough concepts from the old Hellscourge Daemon Knight from Epic (which had a Castigator Cannon, but was so lacking in detail that it was impossible to tell what that actually was, and was also terrifyingly fast and maneuverable for a War Engine of its size), Forge World's Cerastus Knight Castigator, which established the Castigator Cannon as some sort of dual Gatling gun arrangement, the options available to Renegade Knights, and the general theme that Slaaneshi stuff is faster and more maneuverable and more capable of acrobatic feats than a similar Unit that didn't have the blessing of the Dark Prince would be.

Even with a ton of 1/16" brass rod running through all that, it ended up sagging a bit from its intended pose. The original version had the knees bent in a little tighter, like it was in the process of springing off of that crag and suddenly reversing direction. The left foot was originally up higher as well, which helped the sense of motion, and kept the detail I added to the bottom visible, but it didn't hold. These pics were a total pain to take, because the thing barely fits in my light box at all. I took a bunch more, trying to get better shots of things like the head, but these were the only ones that came out even halfway decent.

 Again with the gloss causing problems for my camera. I added an eye where there's usually a little viewport or something (I'm not really sure what that's supposed to be) in the hatch above what was the pilot's compartment, before it got turned into a Daemon Engine. Similarly, I left off all the grab rails and ladders and such, since no one needs to be able to climb up there and get inside anymore.

 I added some plasticard and putty and a bit from the Chaos Hatch Sprue to fill in the foot, but it ended up sagging down to the point where it wasn't visible, so it ended up unpainted because of the time crunch.

A shot focusing on the base. I get way too into it sometimes when I'm working on these big Models. There's just so much room to go wild with, and the larger bases look so flat and featureless if you don't do something to break them up.

Currently, I'm working on finishing up a bunch of things from the Silver Tower set for Azazel's Neglected Model September Hobby Challenge. I should have enough to do a decent post sometime in the next few days, but it might take longer before I get around to actually taking pics and processing them and stuff. How ever long it ends up being, until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Technical August: Marble Effect on Noise Marine Dread

Hobby-wise, my August was mostly occupied with assembly-line painting basic Models, but I did get time to try out one new thing. A while back, Thor posted a tutorial on painting marble that I thought might be within my capabilities, and so I decided to give it a try on my Noise Marine Dread, since the Venerable Dread I was using as a base had a few panels that looked like good candidates for it. So how did it go? Let's take a look:

The groupie is magnetized on, and can be taken off to complete an Objective marker

The engraved lettering and gloss finish messed with the camera. You can still sort of see what's going on there, tho.

Nothing new here, but I was happy with how the base came out. I didn't have time for enough highlighting tho, so it doesn't come through as well in the photo.

So how did it go? Succinctly, not very well. But I'm pretty sure I know what I did wrong. Firstly, I used the wrong colour. Should have mixed some grey in, rather than just going with the Army Painter Soft Tone. Probably should have thinned it down even more. Secondly, I didn't wait long enough between coats. When not completely dry, the Army Painter washes seem to improve the flow qualities of further coats, so even when I managed fine lines, each coat spread to cover the whole previous layer as it dried. I've got a couple of terrain pieces that are good candidates, so I'm going to try again at some point with them.

It's not really noticeable, because Castaferrum Pattern Dreads don't have much potential articulation (even when you are willing to cut the joints apart and re-position them), but I tried to pose him as close as possible to the classic Iron Maiden style "foot up on the amp playing out to the crowd" pose as I could manage.

I've got a couple more conversions from the Army waiting for me to finish prepping the photos. I should have those up in a few days. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

OFCC Aftermath

Last weekend, I went down to Portland for the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge. It's a team event, superficially similar to the ATC/ETC, but with a major difference: The goal when making matchups with the other team isn't to set them up so you'll win more, but to set them up so that everyone has the best chance of getting a fun and interesting game. It's pretty much always a great time, and is the one 40K event that I never miss, even in years when I'm not really otherwise playing 40K, or I'm too broke to go anywhere else, or whatever. 11 years in a row now, I've made it happen.

N went above and beyond, getting us this awesome banner and some cool 3D printed tokens to give to our Opponents

I've tried a couple of times in the past, but this was the first year I've ever managed to pull together a themed team. I went down this time as the captain of the Infil-Traitors, with each of us running one of the four Traitor Legions dedicated to one specific God of Chaos. We had R with a World Eaters force, L representing the Thousand Sons (including both Ahriman and Magnus), N with his Death Guard (including both Mortarion and Typhus), and then me, mostly following the theme in general, but running only a Patrol of actual Emperor's Children alongside a much larger contingent of Daemons of Slaanesh and a Renegade Knight.

Anyhow, that's mostly just the lead-in to the pictures. The three big projects I've been working on were for this event, and two of them (my army and a Sector Mechanicus table) were sufficiently finished to use.

My army as a whole. This was my big impetus for getting the Keeper of Secrets finished, as you can see.

A better picture of her. All of these can be clicked for larger versions. They were posted by the TO; I was way too frazzled to get pics myself.

My Renegade Knight. I included it in the project for two reasons. First, I wanted to reduce my model count, since I'd had issues with my back the year before, and it was giving me trouble during the months running up to the event. Secondly, and more importantly, I had the idea for the conversion, and really wanted to make it happen.

You can sort of see part of my Noise Marine Dread at the bottom of that pic, and it's visible, along with my Daemon Princess and Chaos Lord on Steed of Slaanesh, in the first one, but I can't find the better shots of them that I thought were in the album. I'll have to do dedicated photo shoots for those now that I actually have some room available to set my light box up again.

Here's my Sector Mechanicus table. The railings on the walkways and platforms were unfortunately another area where I didn't manage to get everything I wanted done, but it still worked well. This was apparently taken during round three, since that's me sitting there, and my opponent for that game (who was a great dude, with an awesome Custodes Army) standing there, but I don't remember the pic being taken at all.

Pulling over a pic of his army, because it was too awesome not to share

Honestly, I'm still really not recovered from it. My sleep schedule is a mess right now, and I'm trying to edge back into getting some modeling/painting done. I'll hopefully get around to taking more pics of my various conversions for the Army at some point soon. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

DreadToberFest!

Just a quick shot of what I got painted this month. I'll do more photos, probably on the weekend, but wanted to get a "proof of life" photo up on the last day. I started with 8 built or mostly built Walkers, and ended up getting 4 of them painted, plus another that I hadn't included in my original group, which nicely hits the goal I had set for myself. They all still have more work I'd like to do at some point (particularly the Nurgle Helbrutes), but are absolutely good enough to put on the table.

DreadTober: Into the Home Stretch

Pretty solid work lately. This is actually where I was at the weekend, I've just been lazy about getting it posted. The Alpha Legion Contemptor is done for now. Still needs some more work on the base, but that's easier to do when I have a bunch of them, so it's waiting until I have a couple of Squads done as well. I also want to get some insignia on there, but my hands haven't been steady enough lately.  The main metal layers are done on the SphinxFiend and the DG Helbrutes. I've since started blocking in the blue and green respectively. I'll let the pics take it from here:

That's it for now. Back to trying to not blob Caledor Sky all over that gold. Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

DreadTober: Fiends!

Mostly been working on the two ForgeFiends this week. Haven't got as much done as I would have liked, but I did get some of the tricky stuff that I was worried about out of the way, so I'm pretty happy with the results.

The Plasma Head still needs some greenstuff work around the bottom, but the rest is ready to prime

The base is going to be done with Martian Ironearth/crust

This guy still needs some basing work, as the weird way the original owner did the rear legs means it won't sit flat

Gonna bust out the cork and get a bit of a slope going for it to stand on

That's it for now. Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

DreadTober Update

Not very visually impressive, but in addition to the obvious basecoat on the Contemptor, I've done a bunch of work adding magnets to the two Fiends, and drilling tons of little pockmarks on the DG Helbrutes for corrosion pitting.

The regular Fiend just needs some work done on a base, and then it's ready to prime. The SphinxFiend needs something to help keep the left arm gun from rotating so freely, and I need to figure out what I want to do with the head. Nurgle Helbrutes are ready to re-prime, and the Contemptor needs a green wash, and then I'm going to start picking out details on it.

DreadTober III: Leftovers Edition

Having just finished a couple of builds, I realized I didn't have any projects ready to go from scratch for DreadTober. So I decided to dedicate this one to finishing off some of my WiP Dreads/Helbrutes, some of which have been sitting around since early 6th Ed. Probably not going to get to all of them but I'm going to be finishing up at least some of the following (left to right, front to back):

• Two Converted Helbrutes for my Death Guard
• A Furiouso and an IronClad for my Crimson Thunder
• A Forgefiend for my generic/Dark Mechanicum forces
• Another Forgefiend for the Thousand Sons
• A Redemptor and a Contemptor Mortis for my Alpha Legion

Looking forward to getting some more stuff table-ready, and also to seeing what all y'all come up with. Y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Squaduary: Weather Delay

I have discovered an issue with the Squaduary concept, as opposed to Dreadtober, at least here in the PNW: In October, we can usually rely on at least a couple of days of dry weather each week. February, on the other hand, is pretty reliably rainy, or at least extremely damp and humid, which makes terrible conditions for spray priming. Today is at least sunny and clear, and the humidity is supposed to dip to the lowest it's been for a while in a couple of hours here, so I'm going to hope I can get a decent coat on.

That said, the modeling part went well. I got three Squads of 5 "Scouts" done, one each with Bolters, BP/CCW, and Sniper Rifles. The rest of this is basically just a picdump:

The intensive training the Alpha Legion uses for these operatives takes long enough that they often begin to be warped by the association with Chaos

The Combat Drugs they're pumped up on contribute further to the incidence of mutation in the ranks

The Squad Leaders get the fanciest cloaks

Another consequence of the Combat Drugs is that few of the operatives will survive more than a mission or two, even if they don't die in combat

Only one way to deal with a stealth trooper who won't shut up ;)

The Sniper Sarge calls out targets

The Snipers are the most heavily augmented

The overall effect comes out a bit more kitbashed than I was hoping, rather than mutated, but I'm still pretty happy with them. Hopefully the paint jobs will tie them all together better. Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear!