The Black 3.0 Marauder

 

Howdy, y'all! I know it's been a while. I've mostly been posting my stuff in the BT subreddit, and neglecting the Blogosphere, but I wanted to share this here as well, and now seems like a good time, since it's right before Halloween. It's hard to tell because of the Black 3.0, but the left half of the torso was warped, so after I filled the gap, the front is significantly wider than that of a usual 3rd ed starter Marauder. Other than that, I didn't mess with the model. Figured I'd keep it closer to the descriptions by people who were actually sober at the time, y'know. I did do 5 lighter dots on the cockpit to try to give the impression of the 5 eyes tho.

There are actually three different blacks used on this model: the Black 3.0 for the main coat, Black Templar on the weapons and some of the joints, and Abaddon Black on the edges of the base (other than the front, of course. That's in the main colour of the Mech, like I usually do).

I wasn't sure how well it was going to turn out, because my Black 3.0 is pretty old, and had kinda separated out a bit. But I was apparently able to shake it up enough, because I'm really happy with the final result. 

Hopefully it won't be as long until I get around to posting here again. I've got a ton of BT stuff I've done over the past while that I'll try to get posted. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

DreadTober AU Redux Week Two

How is it Friday again already? I got a COVID booster on Sunday, and it's been kicking my ass most of this week, so I didn't get as much done as I hoped, but I did get the broken heat sink vanes trimmed down and re-primed, and the sidewalk added to the base along with some spackle to smooth out the cork on that and the fallen wall. Needs a little sanding, and drilling holes for the pins to mount the Vulture itself, and then I'll be able to prime the base. Hopefully from there, things will move along more smoothly. It feels good to have gotten moving on this, even if only a little.

I also did get all the dust properly washed off, which was more work than it sounds like. Anyway, this was basically my "finish building" week, and I'll be diving into the painting proper next time. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear! 

DreadTober AU Redux

Doing a nonstandard entry in a couple of regards here. I'm on a total BattleTech kick right now, and I want to try to clean up, fix, and finish the 28mm scale Vulture that I tried to do back in 2019, but couldn't finish because my health was sliding downward for reasons that would remain obscure until earlier this year. Now that I'm recovering from all that, I want to see if I can get this done, too. 

As you can see, the intervening years have not been super kind to the thing. There's a ton of dust, some of it adhering pretty tenaciously, and the heat sinks on the back of the left arm got broken at some point. I need to decide if I can fix those, or if I'm just going to trim them off and have the backs of the elbows be plain. Then I've changed my mind a little about how I want to do the base, so there's some more work there also. Well, here's hoping I can pull it off, and until next time, y'all have a good one now, y'hear! 

Modern Art in the 41st Millennium

This piece, which has been variously reported as being titled "My Triumph", "Don't Worry, I've Got it Entirely Under Control", and "Agh! Run! Run!", Was first exhibited in 879.M41 in Necromunda's Hive Secundus.

The piece is by Magos Biologis Hermiatus and an unknown Corporaptor hominis assistant, and is considered an example of both installation art and performance art. It is a mixed media work, comprised predominantly of misappropriated Archeotech, xenobiological samples, and hubris.

Altho difficult to confirm, it is believed that the piece, or at least what remains of it, is still on display in what's left of Hive Secundus.

***

There we go! Only took me four years to get around to doing the second one. I have to admit, I was extremely nervous when I started taking the clippers to the clear plastic part, but it ended up working out pretty much perfectly. The various differences between the two also mean that the fact that I ran out of the old purple ink that I used inside the tank on the first one and had to substitute Army Painter Purple Tone didn't matter as much as I was worried about, either.

Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear! 

Marta the Second

My skill set doesn't often lend itself to fan art, but on rare occasions, I'll find something I can work with to get close enough. I was idly browsing thru bitz stores on eBay a while back when I realized that Voidmaster Nitsch had a cool uniform that could work as the basis for Marta Dyas from Gideon the Ninth. I really want to do a model of Gideon herself at some point, but I don't have a good base model in mind.

It's not perfect, by any means. There was too much gun-related gear that was going to be too hard to clear off (cleaning up her left arm after removing the shotgun was enough of a pain), so I guess those are like canisters and a pouch of necromancy materials that she's carrying around for Captain Deuteros or something.

I really do love the detail on the Rogue Trader models, even if it is an absolute pain in the neck to paint. I can see a bunch of spots that want touch up, but I just can't deal with it any time soon.

Can't really see much from this angle, but I still liked it as an action shot. The impression I got from the book was actually that the Cohort uniforms were mostly white with red trim, but when I did the actual Elucidian Starstruders, I did white for the uniforms there, so I wanted to change it up this time. 

I'm not usually a fan of this base, but it seemed way too on brand for the Nine Houses not to go with it here. The Second isn't as "all bones all the time" as the Ninth, but they all do that shit to some extent. 

Not sure what I'm going to flit to next, but when I do, I'll be back to share it here, whatever it ends up being. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear! 

Things that Go Bump in the Underhive

In addition to the Dreadtober stuff, I've done a handful of random creepy/spooky models this month. Figured Halloween was a good time to share them here.

This first one was done also for the 35 Years of 40K thing. It's my take on a Grabber-Slasher, a little-known Tyranid beastie that basically only appeared in Advanced Space Crusade. There was a model for it, that was later reclassified as a Squig and moved to the Ork range, but it was frankly kinda crap, so I started over from the statline and description of how they operated in ASC, which gave me the impression of a Gaunt-type Lictor counterpart. A few GSC bits and a spare Hormagaunt body later, and I had this guy here ready to leap out of the shadows to grab and slash away!

This mutant was inspired by a pic I saw on twitter of a Tiefling with horns growing from her eyes. I got the Escher expansion kit for the Wyld Runners and Phelynx, but I don't really care for the Death Maidens, so I had some parts lying around waiting for some horns from a Chaos Spawn to turn her into something possibly even more horrible. 

Then we've got this zombie Slenderman motherfucker. I got a bit overexcited and hasty while building him, so there are some pretty sketchy joins, but they're mostly concealed by the camera angle. I'm still happy that I got him to come out as close to the image in my head as I did.

Last, but not least, we've got this snaky backbent monstrosity. Again inspired by something from Twitter, this time a video of a girl bending over backwards and scuttling around a store like this, scaring the hell out of other shoppers. From left to right, the snakes are a Ridley's Cave Racer, a Green Mamba, a Cottonmouth, and a Redbelly snake. On our world, only the middle two are venomous, but I wouldn't rely on that if I ran into this in a dark hallway. 

It needs another angle more than the others do to really show what's going on here. The random tentacles off the waist are because of reading some D&D sourcebook about Aberrations, where for some reason, two tentacles growing from the hips was one of the most common mutations resulting from dealing with Aberrations, regardless of what sort.

Anyway, have a spooky evening, and until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear! 

Dreadtober 2022: First Into the Fray

Being, as I said, the physical incarnation of a Twitter shitpost made from US$25 worth of beat up secondhand models, I'm not investing a whole lot of time into painting Venerable Ancient Galbadrakh Tsendbaatar. The White Scars colour scheme is striking enough that it works pretty well even without doing too much, as long as you're not too messy with it. 

I wanted to get a shot of the extra fuel for the Heavy Flamer, just because that bit fit in the space available better than I could have planned. Covers up the missing hatch on the side of the Speeder perfectly. 

I also want to toss in a shout-out to Mindtaker Miniatures, since they're responsible for this in two different regards. First, years ago, I got the models that I used to make this from them. Then, much more recently, it was well digging out stuff to sell to them that I found those base models hidden in my storage shelves. And finally, they're just generally good folks, and I miss being able to hang out like when I used to roll down to Vancouver every summer. 

Oh, and before I forget, I did manage to find the parts to finish off these other two, and I got them primed this afternoon. The Hades Gatling Autocannon isn't shown here because it's already painted and magnetized, so I didn't include it when I grabbed them to take pics before priming, but they'll be good to paint in another day or two, once the spray paint finishes off-gassing. The Space Crusade inspired one does a pretty good job all by itself of encapsulating #35YearsOf40K, containing parts from 9 different kits spanning four decades and three completely different game systems. 

I've got some other stuff I've been doing that I'd like to give a more extensive writeup than I was able to on Twitter, so I'll probably have some of that next time, and then more Dreadtobering after that. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear! 

Dreadtober 2022 Start

Missed a couple of years for a variety of reasons, but I'm back for Dreadtober this year with a variety of projects.

First off, this one isn't actually a Dreadnought, it's a Colossus class siege robot. I've been digging into a lot of the older fluff lately, and for a long time, the only real distinction in 40K between Dreads and Robots was whether they had a pilot or a computer. They had tons of cross-compatible parts, and were frequently salvaged from to repair the other. I had figured this one was just going to live in my head for the foreseeable future, since I can't afford an Ironclad kit right now, but then I found one while digging out stuff to sell, so here we go!

This particular example is a True Mechanicum* variant. Unencumbered by the narrow minded restrictions of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the creator felt free to include Xenos tech, in the form of the Gauss Blaster array, and probably some aspects of the Gravitic Singularity Lance on the left arm. There's going to be some sort of fuckoff huge flamer on the right arm, in place of the single Bolter that the classic version carried for anti-infantry work, but I'm not sure where I put the bits I wanted to use for it.

Then there's this mess, inspired by the Mk IX Dominator class from Space Crusade's Mission: Dreadnought, but limited by the bits I happen to have on hand. Again, I'm frustrated by not being able to find what I want for the right arm. I've made like 5 Maulerfiends, how the hell do I not have any Hades Gatling Autocannon anywhere I can find them? Secondary armament is going to be a Missile Launcher and Conversion Beamer, but I'm not sure yet how I want to mount them. Then I need to figure out something more interesting for the front of the thing. 

Finally (for now), we've got the literal physical incarnation of a Twitter shitpost. I can't remember who, but someone was talking about how much it would suck for a White Scars hero to get stuck in a slow, plodding Dreadnought, and I spewed out some bullshit about a Techmarine bolting the top half of a Dread onto a Land Speeder. Then, again while digging out stuff to sell, I also found a couple of AoBR Dreads and this beat to shit secondhand Speeder, so I decided to actually build the curséd thing. 

This one, I at least don't have to hunt for parts for. Just needs some gaps filled in and a fresh coat of primer and I can start painting it. I decided to go with a weapons fit that will let it actually be used as Land Speeder Tornado, because that felt like it made the whole thing even more ridiculous.

I'll be back once I've made some progress. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear! 

*Referred to as the "Dark" Mechanicum by the hidebound fools in the decadent Adeptus Mechanicus. 

Dreadtober '19: AU Edition

Confusingly, I don't actually have any projects going right now that involve actual Dreadnoughts of any sort. So I decided to switch fictional universes and go with the Vulture/Mad Dog kit that I got from FCY Battletech Models last spring.

The top part is kind of back-heavy, and I didn't go with the best pose to compensate for that. I'm going to need to pin it to the base really solidly, but for now, my finger works. Plague Marine for scale.

 I was a little disappointed that this Model is based more on the MWO version (mainly I like the arms on the classic one better), but he'd already done the classic version some years ago, and doesn't do repeats. I may come back to it later and try to scratch-build some new arms for it that better fit what I want it to be, but that's way too much work for right now.

A better look at the base without my hand in the way. It's going to be a street with a collapsed wall partially across it.

 I just got the base in the mail on Friday, so that hasn't been primed yet. Need to stick some bits of paperclips and such in there for "rebar", and spend some time with some spackle to cover up the texture on the flat surfaces of the cork. Hopefully I'll get that done and get the base primed sometime this week, and get some paint on the Mech itself during the same span. I'm planning on a Ghost Bear Clan Invasion-era Alpha Galaxy camo pattern. Frustratingly, I can't find any information on how Unit insignia etc. is displayed on Mechs. I never bothered when I was painting the regular scale ones, but working at this scale, it seems like I really should. Between the various computer games, the fluff books, the official art, and the larger-scale Models, it seems like there should be information about it codified somewhere, but I can't even find anything referring to it at all.

More to come later. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Death Guard Army Showcase

I'm submitting this one for Azazel's Awesome August Hobby Challenge. Not because every single one of the Models seems awesome to me or anything like that (tho quite a few of them would probably qualify on their own), but because I painted almost all of it in a week. I had finished the Angel of Disease for Jewel of July, and one of the Predators, plus the underlayers for the rust on the other Vehicles, were done then too, and one Squad of Plague Marines just needed touch up and re-basing, since I did them in like 2002. All the remaining work on the Vehicles was done in that week, tho, and the other 22 Infantry Models were primer at the start of it. Anyhow, on with the show!

90s metal Plague Marines with newer arms, the Serpents of the Light. I had a couple of the old backpacks, and got someone to help me cast up a few more to fill out the Squad.

This is the Squad from 2002, the Unyielding Kings of Agony. Those are Tactical Marines, a few random bits, and a whole lot of putty. I am still damned happy with how they came out.

The new guys, Cleansed in Pestilence. Even with no easy customizability, there is a ton of variety in the sculpts, and they were a whole lot of fun to work on. There are only six right now because it's OFCC tradition that every team who didn't win puts a Model in the Bucket of Death, and there was one that I have a dupe of.

The Doom of Artifice. I fucking love this Predator sculpt (altho not dealing with hybrid kits), and particularly for Nurgle, it just feels right. Hopefully at some point I'll get around to doing a couple more back and forth bouts of stippling on green and rust colours to really get the transitions right.

The Unholy Blasphemies. These are cool Models, very fun to paint, altho I kept finding more bits partway through that I hadn't realized were actually something else and needed to be re-done. I tried to mess with them a bit to get a little variety, but they're only available as an ETB kit, so there's not a whole lot to be done. A proper kit for them with some options would be great.

The Lord of All Plagues and Fever. Converted from a Dark Vengeance Chaos Lord.

I forgot, I meant to do more work on the pattern on his cloak. Well, that's what happens when you're finishing an Army in a week.

Last, but not least, my BlightKing Terminators, Blessed Are the Sick. These guys were a hell of a lot of fun to make and paint. I'll try to do another post on each of them individually at some point.

The names mostly come from Morbid Angel songs, except for the Unyielding Kings of Agony (Slayer), and the Serpents of the Light (Deicide). As mentioned, due to rushing, there's a lot more I want to get to, particularly some obnoxiously bright highlights on the green, and without those, I had to tweak the colour balance really carefully to get them even this visible. Need to clear my desk off properly again so I can get in to the light box and change out the backdrop for a darker one, but that's not happening anytime soon.

This really shows how feast and famine my productivity can be. I got whatever it was done between January and March, then nothing from then 'til mid July, and then another 36 completions in less than a month. Unfortunately, the two purchases I made since then added another 46 unpainted Models plus Terrain, so I'm even further in the red despite that. Hopefully some of those will make it as part of next month's Scenic & Squaddie September Hobby Challenge. I have a bunch of other stuff well along, too, and have been keeping my momentum up fairly well, so hopefully there will be more soon, probably a mix of stuff for various smaller-scale GW Games, since I'm way more into those than full-on 40K these days. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day

But Carngrad (or at least this section of it) actually was.*

One of my gaming buddies came over on Saturday, and we finally got around to actually playing Warcry. The weekend before, I'd seen some people playing, and one of them said that he thought it might be just barely possible to build all the scenery in a single day. Obviously, that's the kind of thing I take as a challenge, but after finishing, either he builds extremely slowly, or he also meant all the dudes from the set as well, or something else, I don't know. Even taking more care with cleanup and such than I usually do, and consulting the guide that Waywalker Studios did on making sure your Terrain can actually be used for all the Battlefield cards, it still didn't take anywhere near a full day.

Speaking of that guide, as you may or may not have noticed, the assembly instructions in the box only show how to build two Ruins, and leave the remainder up to you. Which would be all well and good except that the game is built around specific Terrain set-ups on the included cards, and if you do just randomly build something cool with the rest, you won't necessarily actually be able to set all of those up. Furthermore, there are a couple of places where it's important to not follow the directions, as they tell you to glue on the stairs and a couple of other parts that the cards call for using in different configurations. The Waywalker Studios guide is good, but they relied on the pictures from the set, which don't have very good angles for the ruins that don't have directions. So hopefully, as well as being a build showcase, this will also have some useful reference images of those ruins from different angles.

Some of these barely fit in my light box. It got a bit sketchy at points.

These are some different angles on the ruin that doesn't have a good pic in the instructions. Hopefully, along with the parts list in the Waywalker guide, they'll make it easier for someone else to build than it was for me.

The other ruin that doesn't have directions. This one is pretty simple, tho.

One of the two that do have directions. Where they did them (and didn't tell you to glue things that should remain loose), the directions are really very good, with the different types of parts categorized and colour-coded.

The last of the ruins. Together, they really do offer a pretty impressive range of options. OK, technically, I think the next one is a ruin as well, but I think of it as The Bell Tower instead. It doesn't really have the same range of options and potential for mixing with the other parts, but is still really cool.

Again, as noted before, don't glue the stairs in. They pressure-fit just fine. I chose to leave the skeletons off of this one because A) the overall concentration of them was getting a bit high for my taste after doing the barricades, B) they'll be cool for other projects, and C) they all have the same pose, and collectively, it makes them look like they were sentenced to The Hell of Infinite Coffee and No Toilets. One big thing to note is that none of the stone framework is damaged except the very top. Chop off those shattered column tops and this could work great as part of an intact structure, make an actual bell tower or something. Also, you could put all kinds of things in the niches instead of the skeletons. A bit skinny for most actual minis, but there re definitely things that could make cool statuary or whatever in there.

The last major piece of terrain from the set. Again, don't glue the stairs in, and ideally don't glue the platform to the statue head (it actually stays on surprisingly solidly), or the barricade at the end either. I did that before I looked up advice on building these, and really wish I hadn't.

See. If that bit hadn't been there, this would be great for extending the platform area available. But it's stuck, so that's always going to be blocked off. Don't make my mistake. Leave it unglued. It sits on there just fine. I thought I also had a pic showing how well the stairs fit with the other ruins, but apparently not. You can see it in the big pic at the top, but it's not as nice as it would have been if I'd done it in the light box.

I really want more of this Terrain. It's built to be pretty compatible with the other AoS Terrain from the Azyrite Ruins on, and there's so much more potential than what I felt constrained to by the limitations of the Game.  A lot of this stuff (particularly the bell tower and statue head) could even fit in with 40K Sector Imperialis sets pretty nicely with a bit of work.

I've also got a bunch of shots of the Death Guard stuff that I've done this month, just need to get those ready to post. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

*Don't ask me about how long it's going to take to get it painted.