Long Awaited Pictures

Here I have some long absent pictures of my first squad. So far, I've completely finished the highlighting on the blue and have the fist layer of gold down. I also have the first layer of what will be the yellow parts (the helmets, some shoulder pads) and brown parts (tabards).



The miniature in the middle of above photo is still my favorite pose. You can see the "yellow" stripes on the helmet a little better in this picture. It's actually Snake Bite Leather (A Citadel Brown). On top of that I'm going to paint a thin layer of Bubonic Brown in that. The final highlight will be Sunburst Yellow. It think this will create a more subtle, golden yellow.





I've certainly learned a lot about using my digital camera since I bought it. Still I think these pictures came out a little dark. In this final picture you can see the first layer of brown (again, Snake Bite Leather). I'm going try to use a lot of thin layers to build up to almost white. I've never tried blending like this before, so I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Also, you might notice one of the minis in the back is missing it's right arm. This wasn't an accident.

When I had first built these figures, I had given that one two "blank" chaos shoulder pads. Chaos shoulder pads, unlike their loyalist marine counterparts, come in pairs of one with detail (like a chaos star) and one blank for a chapter badge. I didn't realized that there were only enough "blank" pads to give each marine only one.

OK, so that part was an accident.

A while back, I bought some archive Thousand Sons shoulder pads. I wanted these for my sorcerer conversions, but also wanted to use them to represent icons in my squads. Unfortunately, I decided this kinda late in the process, so I had to yank this mini's arm off to replace the pad. I just started painting the new shoulder pad, so I'll glue that on soon.

Back on Track(s)

I actualy got a little painting done over the holidays. Unfortunately, I didn't take any new pictures yet. In the meantime, I promised Art that I would post pictures of his work in progress Shadow Sword. I couldn't find many decent pictures of the Forge World version except these for comparison.

Art's Shadow Sword is based on a die cast model of a WWII era German Tank. This thing is probably even heavier than it's resin counterpart.

This is still a work in progress, and I imagine that the end results are going to be pretty cool.






OK, that's enough of these Imperial scum. More Sons next time.

At Least It's Friday

...Even if I have no Defiler pictures for you. In fact, I don't have anything. Between being terribly sick last week and Holiday festivities this week, I haven't gotten much done. Honestly, I don't expect to get much done until after the first of the year. Still, I have this paranoid fear that I don't continue to post every week, people will think I've abandoned my blog and never bother to check it again. The Horror!

New Plan of Action

Since we're nearing the end of the year, I'd like to reflect on what I've accomplished in the last year. I have to say, it's not much. Well, not as much as I like anyway. I think I'm just frustrated that I don't think I have much to show for all my work this last year.

I think the problem is that I haven't been as focused as I'd like. I'll paint one day, then my next session I'll build some flamers. Then I'll go back to painting, but the next session I'll work on my Defiler. The end result is that I have several projects n different stages but nothing completely finished. It's pretty frustrating.

So starting now, I'm going to do nothing but finish my first squad of Sons. After that is complete (and I've posted it on CMON), I'm going to build my entire army. That way, I can at least play some games with my it.

This means that for some time, there will be no more Defiler Fridays. Sorry.

Old News

I found this on my hard drive. It's from a trip to the Dungeon a while back. Enjoy...

Monday Night City Fight

Here are some pictures from the game night I hoseted at my place this last Monday. Above are some of Art's Sisters of Battle. He fought against Mike's recently re-mastered Eldar. I don't have much to say about this game besides it looked damn cool. I, however, was in the other room playing my own game.


Aaron brought the city fight board that he and other memebers of our group (not me, I'm sad to report) created for games day this year. On top of that is Mike's recently constructed Cities of Death buildings.


Mike's guardians take to the streets.


More of Art's Sisters.


This picture of my game against Jono says it all. Out manuvered, out gunned, and out numbered. My Space Wolves didn't do too well.

TGIDF*

*Thank God** It's Defiler Friday

**By "God" I mean Tzeentch of course.

Defiler Friday

Since I'm not a big fan of the tiny little helmet head that usually goes on the defiler, I made this all-seeing eye of Tzeentch. It isn't permanently attached at this point since I can't decide how I want it. I was thinking of mounting it on the chaos star standard that the kit comes with, but I thought that might distract from the eye. We'll see.

Atomic Turkey

I took this picture the Tuesday before I left for Denver which is where I am right now. I figured I should post so that no one thought I had abandoned my blog.

Anyway, I'm going to get back to eating Thanksgiving left-overs and thanking Tzeentch for all our blessings.

Defiler Friday

See, I told you I would have a Thousand Sons update for you. Above you can see my Defiler. What you can't see very well in the picture is the coruscating flame upgrade I've been modeling onto it. You can see it in this picture a lot better:



Of course, this is very much a work in progress. I'll still need to fill in some of the gaps with more green stuff. The "flames" are actually dryad arms cut up and glued directly on. Thanks to Felix for those.

I'm not sure why the picture below came out so bad, but here's what I've been working on for the sons themselves:



I originally built this painting rack for my goblin wolf riders. It works great because toothpicks (or "cocktail sticks" if you're across the pond) fit perfectly into the little holes in the back of the chaos space marine backpack. Simply break the pick in half, stick the blunt end into the backpack, and stick the sharp end into a strip of balsa wood. Bam! Instant painting rack for backpacks or mounted minis.

How did this happen?

While watching my friends Aaron and Felix play Hordes last night, I glued together my Protectorate of Menoth box set. No big deal. I haven't glued the head on the Crusader yet because I figured it'd be easier to paint separately. Also, the box was missing the shield for the revenger.

Again, I am faced with the crisis that this blog is about more than my Thousand sons. Oh, well. At least I actually have a Defiler update for Friday. You'll have to wait.

Uh-Oh! (Warjack...er... Defiler Friday)

Look what I got for my Birthday. Oh, man. This is not going to be good for my Thousand sons productivity. I was thinking I'd like to try my hand at painting some Warjacks, but always said I didn't want to put out the money. Well, I guess I don't have to now. This gift was given to me by none other than the owner of the Dungeon himself, Arlen "Buddy" Montgomery!

I also received a defiler (not pictured) which for those of you paying attention is my third. I've never seen anyone run three defilers in one list, but I think I may be the first. Three defilers all with indirect fire in Cities of Death.. Not bad. That might work. Thanks to Art for that one.

I also got a Games Workshop gift certificate from the guys in my gaming group. Thanks Y'all!

All in all, this has been the most game-filled birthday ever. You can read more about my fantastic Birthday activities at my other blog.

Oh, and anonymous posters can kiss my ass!

Harlequin Friday

I know today is usually Defiler Friday, but I've done little work on it this week. Instead, I thought I'd dedicate this entry to the excitement I'm feeling about the upcoming re-release of Eldar Harlequins (Please Note: I did not paint the miniature above, but thanks for thinking that).

I wanted to post these pictures of the one Harlequin I have remaining from my original harlequin box set way back in 1989.




It's funny to think that I painted this figure 17 years ago! The new figures are so superior to these old ones. I have no Eldar force, but I definitely will be painting some of these.

Defiler Friday!!

Here is my Defiler "up on blocks" as the glue dries on it's legs. I was a little worried about this part because it looked like it was going to be a difficult task to get these things in the right place. I've seen a ton of kids at games shops with these poorly built, leg-less defiler. These kids always make me what to yell, "Damn, Son! Can't you get those legs glued on? You're a disgrace!" I didn't want to be one of those kids, so I really wanted to do a good job on the legs. I'm happy with the way things turned out, and I've gained a lot of sympathy for the kids with the crooked and/or missing-legs Defilers. This is a tough kit.

Below are the bits that are miraculously going to turn into my army's general. I'm thinking of just putting them in a box, shaking it vigorously, and praying to Tzeentch that the thing magically comes out the way I want.


Seriously, when I laid out these parts to take this photo, all those theories that have been in my head for months about what parts are going to fit together became very real. It's a what-did-I-get-myself-into feeling.

You may notice that the part that is going to become the bottom half is a sawn in half Dark Angel. You may be wondering what happened to the top half (OK, probably not, but just play along). Well, I needed something to give my Defiler a little extra weight in the back to balance it's big claws int he front. What better than a half of a metal Space Marine? That's right. Entombed inside my defiler is the mutilated corpse of a Loyalist Space Marine!! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!

Eh-hem. OK, back to reality. Dungeon Con is this weekend, so I should mention that. More info can be found here. I will not be attending, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't. To celebrate, here's a picture of me violating the Dungeon's strict food and drink policy.

Defiler Friday!

I took some pictures of my Defiler in-progress. Not much to see at this point. I did, however, magnetize the top turret so that it can spin independently of the bottom.

In this picture you can see where I epoxied the magnet. There is another magnet inside the ball joint that normally attaches to the turret. I glued these together at the same time to prevent the magnet from switching polarity while the glue was drying.

I'm almost out of my old tube of Testor's plastic glue, and I'm not sure what I'll do when it runs out. Only hobby shops carry that stuff, and I don't know when I'll get to one. In the meantime, I'll probably use super glue to keep the process going.

I wasn't sure of the safety of super glue on plastic, so I asked some friends of mine. As it turns out, my friends are pretty knowledgeable about glue. I received this educational bit from Aaron:

Generally speaking...

Plastic to Plastic = Testors model glue in a tube (contains Acetone which is why it melts plastic and styrofoam)

Plastic to Metal = Cyano Acrylate (Zap, Super Glue, crazy Glue, GW Super Glue - with the exception of its thickness, it is all the same stuff.)

The above is the rule of thumb.

I have had bonds with Superglue on plastic that were a total joke, while others were unbreakable. There was an occasion a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to remove a gaurdsman's arm that was glued on with CA and the arm broke in half because the bond was so strong. If you want to use CA on plastic, make sure the surfaces are as flush as possible, and use just enough to cover the surface. When it cures it takes on this weird crystalline form, so if you use too much it will compromise the bond. This isn't the case with most other types of glue where the more the better.

Epoxy glue essentially forms plastic around what it is glued to. That is why it bonds so well. It has problems too, but is a adequate solution to getting plastic and metal to stick.

Think of Epoxy as liquid plastic. You want to avoid using Epoxy on anything that has fine detail, or is a cosmetic surface. Epoxy, unless you are very diligent about cleaning it up will make bulbous drips all over which are hard to get rid of. If you don't mind an area of rigidity, it works great for gluing bits of foam rubber, and fabric together.

Testors glue will fail at gluing metal and plastic together. The metal just doesn't want anything to do with Testors.

The only thing that CA glue sucks at is gluing things that are porous. If you were trying to glue a rock or a bit of plaster to a base, the rock would soak up a lot of the CA and there would be very little of a bond to speak of. The more gooey the CA is (Take zap for example) the less that this is an issue. Epoxy is great for porous surfaces.

There is more than you ever wanted to know about glue. I very rarely have models break, they do from time to time, but not often. Pinning always is a good idea, but I understand not doing it that often because it is a hassle. On metal minis it is essential in my opinion unless you are gluing large surfaces.

Score (pt II)

I was in Milwaukee with Clare this weekend. While wondering around, killing time before our train home, we happened upon this used book store. It was huge three floors of books stacked to the ceiling. We walked in and I looked to the right to find a huge stack of White Dwarfs. Most of them I didn't have, but I restrained myself and only bought issues 292, 300, and 316. The double sized issue 300 was the nicest catch at $5. It didn't have most of the inserts, but it did have the paint pot stickers.

Anyway, here is a new picture of a mini I've shown here before:

It now has the final stage of blue highlight. Time to get back to the gold.