Hammer of Daemons

While the Grey Knights range - and indeed my army - have been reinforced with power armoured troops, dreadnoughts, huge walking thingies and the like. There has always been just one true pattern of Grey Knight. The Grey Knight Terminator.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that these are my favourite terminators in general circulation (the space hulk ones are my favourites). They're just so well designed, the poses are natural and if you pick the right componants in the right places they're dynamic too. Like the power armoured lads, their details are crisp and nicely cast - the script on the shoulders and knees is excellent - and their weapons look even more badass than the power armoured chaps are! These have actually been hanging around for a while, painted before my wrist started hurting again but lacking a couple of highlights and basing. So I finished them off! Lets take a closer look at some of them.

As with the power armoured ones, the daemonhammer is the only slightly disapointing pose. It always looks a little "weak". I know the huge shoulders cause them posing difficulties but slung over a shoulder or planted on the ground might have looked better. I went for "turned sideways urging the men into battle" as the only viable option. Nice, but not as nice as:

These two are awesome. The two handed grip on the haft coupled with the moving feet makes for a lovely dynamic pose. The one on the left seems to be shifting his weight ready to step forward with his right foot and pivot through it to deliver a savage chop. The one on the right, winding up to strike with the butt-end of the weapon, driving his target back to open room for a chop or stab. It is this sort of thought in sculpting - and careful experiments in dry fitting and part selection - that can make or break a miniature. So many of these models end up looking a little stiff or awkward where a few moments work experimenting with rotating waists and altering head positions can make all the difference. Stand up and get into the pose the model is in. If it is not comfortable or stable then the model will always look awkward. It's why models with poorly sculpted centres of mass look like they are falling over. You know instinctively where a body should be to be stable.

The psycannon was a tiny conversion. I didn't like the passive arm it is designed to go on, I wanted a much more action-packed pose. By trimming some bits to help the fit I was able to get the cannon on to the aiming arm and by putting it on one of the braced pairs of legs I was able to give a nice impression of the Grey Knight lowering his weight, bracing himself and then letting rip with a savage volley of gunfire. Seemed to work!

You'll notice that I talked about posing a lot this time rather than painting. Two reasons why, first, I talked about painting these guys extensively in the power armour article and not a lot has changed since then. Secondly. I really believe that we overlook posing at our peril. Too many of us race through assembly and into painting to get them onto the table. Well, the best painting in the world will not change a bad miniature. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. When the miniature is a solid, totally sculpted one then you kind of have not a lot of choice. When it is parts that you assemble and pose yourself? You are doing your collection a great disservice not to spend just ten more minutes experimenting and acting the prat standing in poses. Heck, we spend enough money on them. Lets make 'em good. Until next time folks.

TTFN

Shoulders of Giants

Hi folks, get the reference? Well, let me help, today is all about the people who guide the fate of the Corsairs, the Farseers:

If we have seen further than others it's cos we stood on the shoulders of giants...

So, unnecessarily niche Newton quotes aside... These pair are a GW farseer (left) and a Chapterhouse farseer on the right. Now, this model seems to no longer be available - probably as a result of the legal wranglings between Chapterhouse and GW. I really, really don't want to reignite the debate here so I'll just say I have no problem with "totally not a one-of-those" style models where a nod and a wink is enough to indicate a homage. Chapterhouse straight up steal. They use the race names and even unit entries. That's just out of order in this humble bloggers opinion. I think GW go too far sometimes where their IP is concerned but I could not blame them for a moment going up against Chapterhouse. Call 'em armoured space elves and provide alternatives. Call 'em Eldar and you've crossed a line from nod-and-wink homage to theft. My twopennethworth. Not that it means a damn thing! Lets talk more edifying things. Painting models!

trying a new on-table lighting set up, pics are a bit stark this time, continue the research Igor!

With these, the challenge was to differentiate the areas of the model without loosing the overall feel of the colour scheme. I knew that I wanted to have predominantly grey robes as I had already started down that road with the warlocks. The trick was adding red contrast while minimising the visual impact of it. The descision eventually boiled down to the inner robes being the best choice. They're mostly covered by the wraithbone runic "circuitry" and stuff like bags and cloths. The robes and the armour, while both starting from the same colour were treated very differently, with the robes being shaded almost to black and the armour recieving nice stark highlights. The effect is a differentiated model while retaining the pallete. The by now familiar wraithbone and turquoises do their work balancing and contrasting the red/grey and leaving a rather attractive finish. Certainly the model that I am happiest so far within the Void Dragon scheme.

So, on to the Chapterhouse farseer. First thing to note is how boring the back view of both of these models are! C'mon, some runic stuff would have killed the designers? Anyway, minor gripe over with. I sharpened the sword as I mentioned in the warlock post (farseers spear too) and set to painting. Turned out to take about half the time of the Citadel one as there really weren't all that many detail areas to worry about. If you were looking for a clean canvass for some freehand work, this would be your man. The vane things on the helmet had a couple of different colours used on them before giving up and going for plain grey. They just are so out of scale with the rest of the model that calling too much attention to them makes them look weird. In situations like that, minimise the impact of the part by using the same colour as the majority of the field and have a nice strong adjecent area of colour to draw the eye away from it. Happily, in this case the face was perfect for it!

There isn't much more to say about these fellas. Guardians and Wasp walkers this week. Pictures, as always, coming soon!

TTFN

Corsair Night Spinners

Hello to one and all. Goodness, Corsair posts are like buses aren't they, you wait for ages and then three show up at once. Today a pair of genuinly horrifying weapons, the Eldar Night Spinners:

I remember when they first invented these horrible things back in the old epic scale Space Marine days. They were nasty then and I still think they are nasty now! For those who don't know: Night Spinners/Doom Weavers or whatever else they are called work by spinning a huge web of monofiliament wire - thinner and sharper than cheesewire - and blows it into the air. Eventually, over it's target it spreads and descends like a parachute cutting through anything in it's path and acting as a razor edged net trapping those imprisoned within. Very, very unpleasant and quite out of character for the normally very neat and precise Eldar! Perfect for the slightly more hardcore corsairs though...

As has become traditional for this army they look better in person than in pictures! The spinnarettes on the barrels of the guns are the business end of the weapon system and I knew I didn't just want them to be solid wraithbone. This had me scratching my head for a few minutes conjuring the "look" that I was picturing inside my mind. I figured that watching the weapon build to firing would be like watching candyfloss (cotton candy for those over the pond) be produced at the fairground. I pictured clear windows through which you see a cloud of whipping fibres coil together and spin around. Once there are enough of them they can be blown out of the end. To keep the turquoise spot colour consistant with the gems (and I am loving painting turquoise gemstones by the way) I painted the glass a dark shade of Stegadon Scale Green and used Thunderhawk Blue to indicate the twisting fibres within. A thin layer of wet effects left a nice glassy effect.

The finished effect is quite nice. I was worried that the bone weapons sticking out the top would unbalance the scheme but I needn't have worried. The pale tone minimises the impact of the gun and makes them seem lighter and thus not top heavy. Don't ask me why it works, it just did! Well, next on my workbench are a trio of rather lovely Wasp Assault Walkers so they'll be up probably middle of next week. Until then:

TTFN

Corsair Double Feature

Hi folks, now that the excitement over the time-bothering, phonebox dwelling vagrant is dying down again I can return you to our regular programming. Pirate Space Elves!

First on the menu are the other half of the Corsair squad, these are all the special and heavy weapons and the leader. Check out the first article for the other half. I'm rather taken with these chaps, especially the heavy weapon troopers. The models look so much better in the flesh than on the Forgeworld website. Let's check out the heavies first:

yikes, the camera really chopped through the blending on the shoulder, looks better in real life.

A shuriken cannon and a missile launcher make for a hefty firepower upgrade for the squad. I know that the grav-platforms are more normal for the Eldar but these forearm-mount style weapons look crackin'. I've altered the wraithbone mix a little. Rather than the fairly unpredictable results of the layers of parchment wash I'm mixing Ceramite White and Zandri Dust for the colour in various ratios and still using Seraphim Sepia for the shading. It's a bit more straightforward and predictable.

The special weapons are likewise lovely and elegant. I tried to get a hunched, furtive look to the meltagunner (on the right). I envisioned him creeping up behind some armoured target to take it out with the critical shot.

With the leader you can see the backpack form nicely, that sword is lovely too, classic scimitar given an Eldar tweak. I had thought to put the Void Dragon's glyph on the vanes of the backpack but the transfers are too large. I'll pick through some of the smaller icons and see if there is any that would be suitable. They look great as plain red though so if nothing works it won't be a complete tragedy.

Speaking of tragedies... no, just kidding. For those who read Today I've Mostly Been the saga of these Dire Avengers has been a long one. They've had two different blue shades, three different greys, the details at the back are cast soft and so are tricky to pick out cleanly - essential for Eldar - and so over the course of weeks of trying to get them right they became something of an albatross. Purely a psychological one though because now they are finished I think they look all right! It's important to acknowledge that these things happen and to try and find strategies to get past them. For me it is usually to stick them back in a box, paint something else and wait for a day where I am feeling full of get up and go in order to attack them again. It works out in the end.

The Exarch, who is armed as all sensible Dire Avengers must be with paired Shuriken Catapults, is one of the better sculpts in the box. The sword especially is nice as is the pose which doesn't pretend that you can aim and fire paired weapons but rather empty one and then bring up the next. Massive firepower, minimum reload. The loincloth really helps balance the odd, bum-wrap too so it doesn't look as weird. On the subject of that bum wrap:

The model pictured is one of my favourite poses from the box, but. The sculpts are really showing their age and have one really, really odd choice. There is a sort of bum-wrap hanging down like a reverse loincloth. This seems to wrap around the armour plate covering the buttocks... despite the fact that no Eldar model has such an armour plate. It seems to float, attached to the buttocks for no good reason, are Dire Avengers inflicted with some horrible diarrhoea that necessitates nappies? I suspect, given the samurai overtones in a lot of the Eldar range that it is intended to be a sort of pseudo-Obi (Obi are the broad silk belts worn around the kimono and through which the sword scabbard is worn). If this went around the waist it would be a lovely Japanese stylistic touch that would reinforce some of the designs. Having it just floating there just makes no sense whatsoever. Because of this it just melts into the undersuit and creates problems choosing where the belt ends and the undersuit begins. Ho hum, a rare Eldar mistep there. Probably a tech-restriction from back whent they were molded.

Well, that's all for today! I'm returning to vehicles tomorrow and trying to get the two Night Spinners finished nice and quickly. 'Till next time;

TTFN

Happy Birthday Doctor!

50 Years ago a very strange man stepped out of a time and space travelling blue police box. Five decades later, he's still doing it! Yes, it's Doctor Who's birthday, frankly, if you are British you'd have to have lived under a rock not to know. Sorry non-Whovians, I'm throwing my hat into the ring too!

I had already painted a fair few pieces of Doctor Who stuff but I knew I wanted to do something extra for the 50th anniversary. Then Andy Foster of Heresy Miniatures brought out his Dr. Payne miniature which bore an uncanny resemblance to John Hurt's "War Doctor" from the anniversary episode (haven't seen it at the time of writing). The plan crystallised: I would represent one of each of the available regenerations of the Doctor. A quick order to Andy and suddenly my one Doctor had become four! Let's go in chronological order, which we now know to be:

John Hurt. I am very chuffed with how this one came out. My favourite of the three new ones. His costume was painted from vague promotional shots so I might need to make some small adjustments after the episode tonight. The black leather I'll talk about in the Ecclestone section, but of the rest the most interesting bits are actually the waistcoat and hair. In the shots I could get my hands on the waistcoat is a rust red with bronze brocade. Now, I'm not a Golden Demon winning lunatic so I needed to indicate the effect without actually painting it! What I ended up doing was putting a red basecoat mixed from Mephiston Red and Mournfang Brown. Adding XV-88 to the mix gave me a slightly yellow tone of the base colour which was mottled on to the base colour. A wash of Reikland Fleshtone and a remottling with more XV-88 added finished a nice deep layered colour that was a good approximation of what the waistcoat looks like from distance. The hair was one of those revalation moments. John Hurt has that salt-and-pepper greying hair that is so hard to paint. I suddenly figured how to do it. Basecoat the hair and beard with Dryad Bark. Then drybrush the hair first with Astronomicon Grey and then Ulthuan Grey. Go heavier on the beard, beards grey first and faster (trust me). Finally wash the whole hair with Agrax Earthshade. The finished effect looks pretty right. Another one for the memory banks!

Chris Ecclestone comes next in the timeline. Frankly, the reason I left the black leather description for this chap is that there is not a lot else to his paint job! The first of the New-Who Doctors had the most BORING costume! I've played with a lot of different methods for black leather but I like this one a lot. Basecoat with Val Leather Brown. Next, glaze with multiple layers of black wash. I used Secret Weapon Heavy Body Black as this stains quite badly and is fairly shiny. Perfect for this task. Two layers of that gave that lovely brown-black tone. A light drybrush of Val Leather Brown around the edges reinforced the worn leather look and finished it off nicely. As I reckon the Eccleston coat is the same one from the Hurt incarnation I painted them identically. Next death!

David Tennant, the man who made Russell T Davies's scripts watchable. Great Doctor. I'm not completely happy with the face, might have another go at some point (I only really had a day to paint these three). His painting is fairly unremarkable but if someone wants to replicate the colours: the suit is Val Luftwaffe Blue and Macragge Blue mixed. The coat is Val English Uniform highlighted with Val US Field Drab. Athonian Camoshade glazes and shades the colour nicely. Some mucky red and white Converse trainers finish his "look". Mucky white is fairly easy. Ceramite White is washed in a thin mix of Steel Legion Drab and then highlighted with a mix of Ceramite White and Steel Legion Drab. Simples. Another death, another Doctor:

My Matt Smith doctor was painted a while ago (he's my favourite NewWho to date, see). I have a full article on him from back then so I won't go over it and instead talk basing for a moment:

The bases are the nice Black Cat base toppers, metal casts. For three of the Doctors I've used their victorian brick paving as it fits the time bothering nature of the character. For whatever reason Chris Ecclestone's Doctor always feels more rooted in a council estate in Norf Landon so he got an urban one instead.

So there you have it. My tribute to one of my favourite sci-fi characters. Why do I like the Doctor so much? Well, the format helps, he can have a new setting, a new foe every week. The enemies are mostly ace (occasionally deeply naff) and when it is well done it is creepy without being traumatic so you can watch it with kids. But the most important thing? Do me a favour, picture in your head what you hear when I say "Male lead, action hero". I'm guessing that there will be clean cut, cool, probably all-American, square-jawed hero probably with a firearm. The Doctor is smart, dorky, pacifist and awkward. He solves his problems with tricks, cunning and guile. Violence is always a last resort but he can stick up for himself if he needs to. And with all of that he is still awesome. A manic blur of energy and complex vocabulary in a malfunctioning spaceship. There are precious few decent role models for geeky lads. The ones who will never be jocks. Never be cool, top of the attainment tables and bottom of the heap status-wise. The Doctor is their hero, and he's always coming to save the day.

So where next with my own little Whoniverse? Well, that rather depends on how many of us wheedle Andy to make more Doctors! I want all of 'em! I'd like companions too, there are models out there but their likenesses aren't as good as Heresy's. More bad guys are definately in the offing. If I can find Cybermen then they are in. Probably some Weeping Angels from Crooked Dice. Otherwise known as Paint All The Things! I doubt they'll ever make it to a wargame, they're the closest thing to display models I do. So happy birthday Doctor Who. May you have many, many more.

TTFN

UK Wargamers, you need to take notice of this:

Hi folks, quick public service announcement. If like me you order a lot of your paint online then the Not-Royal-Anymore Mail are about to make that a LOT more expensive:

They are intending to make sending more than four containers of water-based paint against their terms and conditions. They still allow a litre of alcohol on a box. But 125ml of water-based paint is somehow a dire threat to their operations.

There is a petition to stop this insanity please sign it, share it and ask the formerly-Royal Mail what the hell justification it has for this idiocy. Their parcel charge structure has already struck a gut punch to the small providers and producers. This? This has no basis even in logic.

On more real news, work is proceeding and my bulbs are en route. More shiny pictures very soon.

TTFN

Electrical help please!

Hi folks, given that I know that you are all people of impeccable character and good taste (handsome too I wouldn't wonder), I was wondering if some clever people out there could answer a question for me:

What the dickens is killing my daylight bulbs? Both of mine have gone in the space of a week. Obviously, you're going to need a smidgeon more information than that so here goes: I use a pair of desk lamps to light my work space, in both I use energy saving daylight bulbs (this one:big lamp and this one:little lamp). The lamps themselves are rated for wattages far in excess of the 30W and 11W that the bulbs draw:

40W has small edison screw, 60W standard bayonette.

Now these bulbs are supposed to last for tens of thousands of hours. I'm replacing them after about four months. My usage is about 8 hours on a day, no switching on or off regularly. Have I miscalculated? Is the problem that the output of these bulbs is worth 150W and 60W respectively? I assumed it was all about the draw, not the output. Or is it just that four months is a realistic timeframe for modern (presumably less well made now they are mass market) energy savers?

Thoughts clever people? I've no intention of making this a debate between Camp Incandescent and Camp Energy Saver because frankly, especially in the EU, incandescents are dead. Like a lot of nineteenth century technologies. If it is the shades that are the problem I could probably remove them. Who knows? I'd like to!

I've got the replacements ordered from Energy Bulbs (who are ace and deliver very fast) so lost time isn't too much of a problem but I want to know if this is just a reality I should be budgeting for, a mistake in lamp choice (more annoying as it would be more expensive than a bulb ;) ) or something else? Thanks in advance.

Edit: I've had info that apparantly it is output and the heat generated that the lamps are rated for so that might be it. Righto! If anyone has more info, please share! Looks like I'll be using the replacement bulbs in these for a while until I can source more bulb friendly versions.

TTFN