Blood Flows Red on the Highway

 Well, this marks a momentous occasion: my first-ever Warhammer 40K vehicle is starting to resemble something vaguely like a Rhino after being broken down, mixed in with some other parts, and cobbled back together. (In truth, this is also the first "plastic vehicle model" I've ever built where I had a clue as to what I was doing - the first was a shoddily-assembled and even worse-painted model of the large ship from Disney's "The Black Hole" when I was maybe 8 years old). This Rhino is to be the transport for my Undivided Chaos Lord and his crazed Berzerker retinue as they race across the battlefield to close with the enemy - I'm wanting it decorated up a bit, but not so much that it screams "Something important in here, please shoot me!" especially given that there should be at least one other vehicle on the field, if not more:

 The final product is going to (ideally) look like a Mk.I that has over time "evolved" and/or "converted" into somewhat of a quasi Mk. II Rhino with some general stuff missing, out of place, or mutated. I got the Chaos Space Marine Battleforce Box when the latest Chaos Codex came out and the parts for this were in it - now, several years later, I'm having fun "kit-bashing."

 I have somewhat of a dilemma, though: other than Mk. I-reminiscent panels on the sides and open spaces on the top, I'd like to put some sort of decorative pattern or something. I had considered two bands of multiple inset skulls, one each running up the front angle over the tracks, past the exhaust pipes, and then down the back angle - there's several problems with this, one being that the pintle-mount cupola occupies half that top space; another is what to do at, say, the halfway mark, where in order for the skulls not to look awkward on the trip back down the rear angle over the tracks, I'd have to do a 180° rotation. Next up would be some sort of hammered metal banding pattern - same thing in that half of one would need to be thinned on the top, or not include one of the bands entirely; last but not least, I could forgo all that, do all the paneling similar to a Mk. I, and have a replica of sorts of my Warband's insignia patterned around the three circular shapes and then creatively in the vaguely open area - something like this:

(except smaller)

 So far as the overall look - the new Vindicator revisions had just came out around the time of the latest Chaos Space Marines Codex (or thereabouts) when I got my Rhino w/ the CSM Battleforce and I liked the chunky-style busy-looking top of the Vindi much better than the plain ol' Rhino top. So here it is quite a few years later and I decided to make my own chunky, Vindicator-esque Rhino like I had decided on way back then - after quite a lot of cutting, gluing, and trimming, things are starting to come together but I'm expecting to put a lot more detail on it.

 Some extra spiky detailing is going to be added in when I sculpt some growths/horns around the exhaust pipes/engine columns to protect them, and some, um, mutated texture/spines here and there around the body of the thing. Don't know what color I'll paint the more organic areas, but from an experiment with the Games Day figure of two years ago in starting an Ultramarine scheme, I know an excellent way of having the paint flake away from the "different" spots. I was also thinking barbed wire strung around the perimeter of the roof to prevent people from climbing up on top - a la the tanker truck from The Road Warrior. Dunno, though.

 I don't necessarily want to peg this Rhino as my Chaos Lord and Berserker retinue's transport so it turns into an automatic fire magnet, so I don't want to make it too ostentatious. The filigree would be a good idea if I had a lot of time, but since this is theoretically my "Snow theme" competition entry, I'd like to finish the modeling and get on to the color "soonish." For filigree, ([I]maybe[/I]) painted on effects would be doable time-wise, but even using fine powder and thinned glue to make raised pattern lines, that'd take forever to apply.

 I have to take another look at the skull panels from one of the newer Imperial Administratum building sets I bought - a lot of good stuff for ruins there, outside of things to add to this Rhino. I don't even know if I'd be able to saw it evenly into straight sections unless by pyrogravure and marked everything out ahead, and then undercut any overhanging bone outlines over the borders to have it look proper.

 I'm probably leaning towards a hammered metal look (ball peen hammer divots, say), but it depends how things come together. Right now I have the ammo cans cut for the forward default twin bolter so it will sit lower but need to figure out how to merge them into the guns so as to not look forced. I'm having the default twin bolter listed as standard to a Chaos Rhino mounted to the cupola next to the driver's port w/ a 360° traverse, and the pintle-mounted one separate on the roof at the back.

 I've decided that my vehicles are going to be crewed by The Shriven, so I can get some practice in modeling and painting them as magnetized add-ons prior to going whole hog with the full army list some time in the future.

Hobby Tip: Windex

Nothing but a simple, straightforward tip here - it's late, I'm tired, and I've not made any entries in a while since I've been working behind-the-scenes on converting a Rhino for my Disciples of the Four army's Chaos Lord and his Berzerker retinue: specifically, a Mk. II Rhino reworked to look like an upgraded Mk. I Rhino with added "bling." (I'm getting near the point where it's publicly presentable, I think, if not completely finished. Watch this space for updates "soonish!")

Today's tip is essentially this: if you use a palette of any sort, whether it be a cheap white ceramic tile or an 8 well "daisy"-style plastic watercolor one, I've found that spraying it down with ol' classic blue Windex and letting it sit for a little while (say, 15 minutes or so) is great for making cleanup a lot quicker and easier. After squirting down the palette with Windex and letting it soak, the paint generally sloughs right off, especially when ran under warm or hot water.

I don't know if it's the ammonia or the fact that Windex is also designed as a surfactant to make cleaning glass (and countertops!) easier, but I find it works great on palettes. On a related note, I find it also works excellently for sloughing dried paint off of the 1mL medication dispensing syringes I use for mixing and dispensing my paints and thinners - I seem to be in the minority, though, when it comes to using syringes or similar tools for precise measurement when I'm painting.

Note: unlike Simple Green, which I would recommend to anyone for stripping paint from white metal or plastic figures and models with a minimum of effort and no damage to the figures at all, I wouldn't say the same about Windex. While the palettes and graduated syringes I use are plastic, they are "industrial" grade plastic and not molded polystyrene like most of my current figures - although I've not tested it for stripping paint, I have the sneaking suspicion that Windex might be a bit harsh on polystyrene, much like Pine Sol.

The Disciples of the Four and The Shriven (It's All Dan Abnett's Fault)

 Here's something a little different that's not specifically about painting and modeling! Although I've taken a few stabs at trying to crank out an army for 40K in the past, most of which are now relegated to work-in-progress status and many of those linked to in the Gallery of my painting website, I haven't really had any fully realized army lists or troop rosters in mind to work towards - more often just vague half-formed plans. With the goal of keeping myself on track (as well as possibly getting feedback on the validity/combat-worthiness of my forces), I've been busy the past few weeks in spare moments trying to narrow down selections for two completely different army lists for forces I'd like to field in the hopefully near future - one is fairly straightforward from the current Games Workshop Chaos Space Marines Codex and the other has been planned out more from a modeling, conversion, and back story standpoint over the past several years and just lately been pigeonholed into one of the army lists from Forge World's Siege of Vraks-themed Imperial Armour books. The more convoluted army list of the two is now a Nurgle-biased force using the Renegades and Heretics list out of Imperial Armour Vol. 7, and is serving as my starting point for representing a force of The Shriven as taken from Dan Abnett's "First and Only" novel in the Gaunt's Ghosts series - for anyone who's already read in past entries about my unwholesome fascination with them as described in the book, I apologize in advance.

 Bear in mind that I hardly have any tabletop 40K play experience under my belt as I've consistently been more of a painter and converter than a gamer since getting back into the hobby about 4 years ago, but I'm looking to make a serious attempt at planning, assembling and painting up a few small armies (500 points or so each) with several goals in mind: 1) I'd like to actually play 40K for once with a fully painted and game-legal army of my own, 2) I want to complete a starting force of Chaos Space Marines in a loose, non-Legion-specific Warband of my own design for the sake of getting something playable "soonish" while still allowing for some conversion and variety in painting, and 3) I'd like to finally be able to put a force on the table as allies of my CSM Warband so as to represent remnants of The Shriven from "First and Only" - an army composed of the former workers, administrators, disciplinarians, and leftover general populace of the Forge World of Fortis Binary who were corrupted by Chaos, went rogue, and overtook the planet itself.

 My first army list has been easier to wrap my head around, as I'm more familiar with the Chaos Space Marine Codex, their troop types, and the overall concept of how the Chaos Marines theoretically handle themselves on the tabletop. This first list represents a smallish beginning force of troops from my self-designed Warband, The Disciples of the Four, that I've been kicking around ideas for in my head ever since Games Workshop released the latest CSM Codex:

=HQ=
Undivided Chaos Lord
- Daemon Weapon
- Combi-melta
140 pts.

=Troops=
5 Khorne Berzerkers (w/ Chaos Lord attached to these guys in game-play)
- Skull Champion
-- Power Fist
Rhino w/ pintle-mount twin bolter
185 pts.

8 Chaos Marines
- Icon of Chaos Glory
- Meltagun
Rhino
175 pts.

Total: 500 pts.

 In terms of a back story, The Disciples of the Four are an extra-zealous splinter group from the post-Heresy Word Bearers Legion, some time after the Legion's retreat to the Eye of Terror. Essentially, the originators of The Disciples split away from the Word Bearers Legion due to a difference in ideology: they felt their former comrades were somewhat lacking in "enthusiasm" - outside of converting whole populaces to worship of the Chaos Powers, building unholy monuments that stretch up into the stratosphere, and dogmatically enforcing their religious will on the conquered, they felt that the Word Bearers Legion's somewhat "distanced" spiritual approach didn't go nearly far enough. The Disciples of the Four want to demonstrate the might and the glory of the Gods of Chaos to the rest of the galaxy physically as well as from a "spiritual" standpoint. My Warband essentially will be marked with rampant mutation and corruption of the body and soul (from a "sane" 40K perspective) as a sign of their devotion to the Fell Powers, and the higher one progresses in the overall hierarchy within The Disciples, the more marked and favored they will be by the 4 Chaos Gods (read: rife with physical perversion and deviation from the semblance of their former appearance).

 I'm keeping with an Undivided belief approach in the Warband's adoration of the Chaos Powers (ideally for the most variety in painting, conversion and gameplay), and from a "fluff" standpoint, so long as any potential new members or allies likewise show utter devotion to the Ruinous Powers (both spiritual and corporeal), then The Disciples of the Four would basically be accepting of whoever (and whatever) wishes to join up with them in their efforts. I more or less adopted this "theme" for the sake of not getting stagnant or bored painting-wise, meaning I'll be able to incorporate canonical Games Workshop Chaos Marine Legion color schemes and styles of appearance that I've always liked directly into my force as well as (suitably corrupted) Imperial Marine Chapter paint schemes and insignia, and so long as I maintain certain specific elements from figure to figure such as iconography or particular armor panels in set colors, things ideally won't look too motley.


 My second army list is a first stab at getting some models on the tabletop so as to represent a playable force of The Shriven - I have no experience whatsoever playing Imperial Guard or even against IG, so this is more an attempt to combine the ideas I want to get across with something that will hopefully be effective in-game. Compared to my planned Chaos Marine troops, I'm expecting more or less every figure of my Shriven army to be converted from original base models/parts in some way - in other words I'm planning to get my Disciples of the Four Chaos Warband troops painted up to a reasonable standard using whatever shortcuts and repetitive batch painting I can tolerate, so as to be able to actually play a game with my own figures, while The Shriven troops will be a bit more involved in creation and can be worked on in the background. So far as a back story goes in terms of their alliance with my Warband, they're intended to be leftovers of The Shriven forces in "First and Only" after the involvement by Gaunt's Ghosts on the Forge World of Fortis Binary. In the book (without ruining a great read) they are allied with the Iron Warriors and have a leaning towards long range bombardment, trench fighting, self-mutilation (former work-related protective gear sewn directly into their flesh, for example) and the use of, um, poisonous chemicals and daemonic rituals. Here's my planned army list for The Shriven as a separate small force to complement my CSM Warband:

=HQ=
Renegade Company Command Platoon
Company Command Squad (more or less comparable to the Troop Platoon Command Squad from the newest GW Imperial Guard Codex)
1 Champion, 4 Renegades
(Champion has laspistol/CC weapon, 2 have lasguns, 2 have autoguns)
- Vox-caster
- Chaos banner

Mortar Squad (part of Platoon)
3 Heavy Weapons teams
- Lasgun & mortar each team
- Chemical shells (poisoning of bombardment targets on a 2+, and Marine-killing AP)
125 pts.

Apostate Preacher of Nurgle (comparable to the Ministorum Priest from the latest IG Codex)
- Bolt Pistol
- Eviscerator
67 pts.

=Elites=
5 Plague Marines (same as in the GW Chaos Space Marine Codex)
- Plasma Gun
130 pts.

=Troops=
Mutant Rabble (more or less comparable to a squad of IG Conscripts, and will have the Preacher attached in game-play)
20 Mutants
- 2 Flamers
92 pts.

Mutant Rabble
20 Mutants
- Flamer
86 pts.

Total: 500 pts.

 Given the unfolding of the story in "First and Only," this force represents The Shriven "in exile" finding a welcome home as allies amongst The Disciples of the Four, as well as a following of mutants and degenerates trailing in their wake as The Shriven recouped their numbers and sought refuge on a number of worlds following an abrupt separation from their previous "protectors." I'm blaming the current lack of tanks and other fun means of mass slaughter on my difficulty in cramming heavy armor and warm bodies into the same 500 point army list, but I could also say that in their departure from Fortis Binary they were forced to leave a majority of their heavy guns behind but still have a leaning towards trench warfare tactics, heavy fire support. and long-range bombardment as learned from their time with the Iron Warriors.

 Feedback on either the army lists or my "fluff" for them would be greatly appreciated, as I'm pretty much a newbie when it comes to army building and actual gaming in 40K - I haven't even played anything in 5th Edition, for example, outside of a single brief run with 500 points' worth of unpainted and borrowed Orks when the Assault on Black Reach set first came out. For anyone interested, I've had a running work-in-progress thread over on the RelicNews Painting & Modeling Forum with both my work on The Shriven and (moreso) the Disciples of the Four for quite a while now. (Barring a few in-progress painting efforts and finishing up the Thousand Sons Chaos Lord for eventual sale, my expected focus in the near future will likely be on getting the troops for both these army lists assembled, playable and painted!)

Hobby Tip - Cyanoacrylate Gluing

This Hobby Tip entry is specifically regarding cyanoacrylate (or CA) glue, one of the more important tools in assembling figures and vehicles. CA glue is unique in that it requires no heat or pressure to bond - it reacts with moisture in its surroundings in order to polymerize (solidify) and will join together anything it is in contact with as a byproduct of its polymerization process. Cyanoacrylate glue has a number of advantages: it sets itself even in an airless environment, it is able to join together different material types since its setting process is more or less "self-sufficient," and the glue itself creates a reasonably strong bond if spread on properly prepared (slightly roughed-up) join surfaces. As a result of using moisture as the main catalyst in its chemical reaction, cyanoacrylate glue is brittle when fully dried as compared to other glues. Another failing is that due to its brittleness, CA glue bonds themselves can "shatter" much easier compared to those of glues that maintain a certain amount of flexibility, like two-part epoxies.

I've found through trial and error (generally a lot of error) that it is most often a waste to buy a large size bottle of the stuff. Despite various methods to try and keep the stuff from clogging or generally building up to the point where the bottle becomes useless, it invariably seems to happen. I've tried using wood nails/push pins in the top to seal the bottle (inert metal vs. directly stuck cap), wiping off the bottle and slapping the lid on tight as quick as possible (limiting amount of air), transferring the stuff into a smaller precision-drip bottle (despite a metal drip tube this time, it still clogged and wouldn't clean out despite all kinds of tricks), and even experimenting with all different consistencies of CA glue (super thin vs. medium viscosity vs. gel) to try and find one that would "last" longer - I think you get the idea. My advice would be to buy the smallest bottle you can (generally the cheapest, anyhow) and that way you'll have less go to waste. I no longer buy larger repackaged bottles from hobby stores, or even specialty hobby brands like Zap-A-Gap, since they all come in larger containers and are all essentially the same thing - pure cyanoacrylate glue.

In terms of usage, the gel variety (Krazy Glue Craft Gel, "Gap Filling Formula" Zap-A-Gap) has a longer set time (30-60 seconds) and is good if you need to position a part before the glue hardens it in place - another fringe benefit for assembling models or figures is that the gel variety also fills minor gaps due to the thicker consistency. Super thin CA glue is great for narrow spaces and has a quick set time (5-10 seconds, usually) - it makes the best use of precision applicators and allows capillary action to "draw" itself into narrow crevices due to the surface tension of the liquid CA glue (in other words, if applied to a narrow crack between two close-fitting held-together parts, it will creep in between the parts and join them in a very short time frame. Medium viscosity CA glue behaves, well, somewhere in the middle.

A lot of people use CA bond time accelerators or "zip kickers" - now while I've never personally bought them, I've likewise never had reason to. The idea behind a CA accelerator is that it essentially serves as a catalyst for the glue's "chemical reaction" - in other words, it increases the amount of moisture in contact with the glue so that it sets quicker. As I mentioned at the start, the key feature of CA glue is that it responds extremely well to moisture of any kind - unsurprisingly enough, even a drop or two of plain water will cause your CA glue to "kick off" immediately when compared to allowing CA glue to draw moisture from the to-be-glued parts and ambient humidity. Even breathing on setting CA glue has much the same effect (with the down side of potential inhalation of glue fumes), while using a hair dryer on parts glued with CA adds funneled air moisture via the directed blower as well as a quicker evaporation rate. You can likewise add a great number of materials to CA glue besides water that have a high "moisture" content and a fast evaporation rate in order to speed up the glue's chemical reaction: acetone, mineral spirits, rubbing alcohol, Tenax 7-R, thin viscosity plastic (polystyrene) cement, and even Green Stuff (AKA Kneadatite) - you'll find that the CA glue sets up much quicker, almost instantly in some cases. The greater the added moisture coupled with a quicker evaporation, the faster the setting time. (Again, I've never bought a "name brand" CA glue bond time accelerator - but I've used plenty "off-brand" kinds!) A few notes on this subject: a lot of chemicals are almost as toxic on inhalation as the glue fumes itself, so be careful, and using some sort of "zip kicker" versus allowing it to "naturally" set results in a weaker join - a forced reaction means less opportunity to spread or establish stronger polymer bonds.

One thing about CA glue to always keep in mind, is that even though it make have set visibly and bonded parts together physically it is by no means "dry" (although technically this is true about most substances that start out "wet," like paint or even spray primer.) It continues to give off fumes until completely evaporated and these fumes are lighter than air. If you have CA glue inside a sealed container (like a glued-on enclosed canopy or glue-fastened vehicle cockpit, for example), fumes from the drying CA glue will interact with ambient humidity inside the container and you will end up with a hazy coating everywhere that the fumes have spread - great for "tinted glass" effects, but not so good for a clear plastic window. Like it says on the bottle labels, always use CA glue in an open, well-ventilated space: I'd suggest that when allowing CA-glued parts to dry, you should lay them or prop them up so that the fumes have somewhere to vent away other than inside your model.

In a roundabout way, this brings me back to the problem of preventing clogged glue bottles. The reason they clog or get their lids glued on solidly is the "reacts with moisture" part - after you put the glue bottle cap on, the glue solidifies as it reacts with ambient moisture drawn into the mouth of the glue bottle as well as any moisture on the outside of the bottle opening or inside the cap itself. You're essentially putting a self-sealing cork on your glue bottle if there's any glue in the opening whatsoever, and it will happily adhere the moisture-laden bottle cap to the moisture-laden bottle mouth if you let it - I speak from experience here.
Here's several methods to minimize your CA glue bottles "clogging" themselves and becoming unusable as a result:

• Make sure to wipe any excess glue off the opening of the bottle, in order to minimize the amount of chemical bonding after you put the cap on.
• Use bottles with a smaller opening, or better yet, smaller bottles outright - the smaller the opening and the smaller the amount of glue left behind to react, the easier it will be to break the seal the next time around.
• Accept that the glue will eventually seal its bottle shut, buy bottles with long "spouts," and simply snip off the blocked end whenever it happens.
• Coat the open end of your glue bottle before putting the lid on with something that A) does not carry moisture and B) will help to protect the glue inside from additional moisture - smearing a little bit of petroleum jelly (Vaseline) on the mouth of your glue bottle will keep it usable much longer and help to prevent clogs.

Good luck, and may your cyanoacrylate glue bottles remain forever unclogged! Comments or other gluing suggestions are very welcome...

* KABOOOM* Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP [Update 11/2/2009]

 I'm turning my attention back to my Forge World Renegade Psyker as an entry in a friendly painting competition over on the RelicNews Painting & Modeling Forum that's going to be starting up on Oct 15th, and essentially my next step now would be getting under way with painting. He's standing on a trimmed-down Secret Weapon Miniatures "Urban Ruins" resin pre-cast mounted atop a Games Workshop slottabase, which is primarily cracked and pitted concrete in appearance but with a little extra surface grit that I added in parts. This particular base seemed a perfect fit to my vision of the figure's overall appearance, since by offsetting the resin pre-cast piece on top of the slottabase and pinning the Psyker to the slightly raised back portion of the resin pre-cast base allowed me to "play up" the fractured concrete at the Psyker's feet. I further converted the overall figure basing to ideally show him in the process of using a "psychic power," as he's thrown back his gas mask and is clutching his head in apparent anguish - kinda hard to tell, though, since the sculpt of the figure is such that his "face" is stripped down to the bare skull with augmetic eyes and a breathing system.

 At face value, it doesn't make any sense to me that a Renegade Psyker would be sent out to fight an Imperial reclamation force as a living weapon but is having a hard time preventing his own head from exploding. It seemed to me that a better visual effect overall would be to give the Psyker an external demonstration of him actively using a "psychic power."

 Since the "Urban Ruins" resin pre-cast was a perfect layout allowing me to have him standing on pitted concrete with increasing damage in an outward direction in front and away from him, I decided to add an effect of what hopefully looks like chunks of shattered concrete exploding outwards in front of him (and a buckled and torn part of a Rhino hatch in the mix, just for fun with color and texture):


 Unfortunately, my client for the Thousand Sons Chaos Lord commission I've been working on in my "spare time" the past few months apparently "disappeared off the face of the Earth" and I've had no luck in attempts to make contact. I'm taking a break in work on that piece - likely to be auctioned off when finished - in order to paint up the Renegade Psyker for the competition at the Painting & Modeling Forum. I put painting the Psyker on hold a while back in order to work on the Thousand Sons Lord commission - the Psyker suffered some slight damage to the previously-finished basing in the down time (probably our cats and getting jostled around since I need to reorganize my painting area) and I just patched him back up today.

 I've no idea how the Psyker will turn out appearance-wise except for a few vague color ideas: ideally I'll be trying an airbrush that I got for my birthday in August (using paint for the first time) at some point with him, even if it's just blocking out areas of plain color; he's theoretically going to be a test of a workable color scheme for a Renegades & Heretics force aligned with multiple Chaos Powers (I had a definite color scheme in mind that I was set to use back in 2007 when I first concocted having a Renegade force under the Lost and the Damned rules, but those were more generic troops than the FW Siege of Vraks army list I'm using now); and lastly, and maybe most importantly - I haven't painted anything at all since December 2008! (It's been quite the year.)

Comments/suggestions appreciated, as always!

Getting back to business!

Note: this is not an apology, it is a combination public service announcement and self-motivational tool.

 Since our daughter started 1st Grade in the beginning of September, she has been sick several times and has shared that "wealth" with the rest of the family - I've no doubt we've had our own stuff and passed some on to her, but c'est la vie. Her 7-month-old brother has caught more or less everything that she has had. At one point in the past several months, the both of them had dual ear infections at the same time. My wife (in addition to being sick w/ colds and respiratory infections several times) found out that she had an abdominal hernia, likely dating back to when we had our son in February and due to a respiratory infection for several months around the time she delivered him by C-section, had complications due to her racking cough including tearing her incision - is it any wonder her abdominal muscles didn't quite heal properly (hence the hernia)? She had surgery about 2 1/2 weeks back now, is recovering nicely, and has all her innards stuffed back in their appropriate locations - morbid bastard that I am, I was having visions of Father Nurgle's Plaguebearers with intestines dangling out (thankfully didn't come true in her case) when describing her abdominal hernia to people.

 Myself, I've had several colds and respiratory infections along with everyone else - hey, why not - and am in the process of slowly getting over what feels like an ear infection on one side and has had most of the symptoms of an ear infection, but technically "isn't" at least according to two different ENT doctors. On the neat-o side of things, I got to have a CAT scan of my head to see what's going on internally - I've never had anything like that done before, barring an X-ray of a dislocated and broken "pinkie" toe a year or so ago, but that's not quite the same thing (and besides, I kinda figgered my toe was dislocated and broken, having straightened it back in place from being bent sideways). I'm still waiting on the scan results from earlier this week, and aside from a treatable cause of my "unusual ear pain," I'm hoping they also show the hamster inside my skull still hard at work busily spinning his wheel.


 All this is not really why I'm making an entry here - no, the reason I'm making an entry is to publicly advertise my intention (now that things have hopefully started settling down a bit life-wise) to get back on track with more regular updates and such here to make this painting/modeling site worth reading. To that end, here's a few works-in-progress that ideally will be showing here in future updates:

• The Thousand Sons Chaos Lord of Tzeentch I made an entry about several months ago is nearing completion of the conversion work, but the commissioning client seems to have vanished! Not naming names, he was working at the Games Workshop Hobby Center I generally go to, but is no longer there - I never received my usual down-payment of the final fee (never asked, in truth) because I was able to get ahold of him fairly easily to go over ideas and make sure we were on the same page so far as the conversion and painting work to be done. Well, I put work on the figure on hold and sent the client an email to find out his intentions - my only other means of contacting him. At this point there's been no response by the requested "deadline" per my email to the client and I have no other reasonable way of getting ahold of him (I think hiring a private investigator would be a bit much ). All he's out financially is the base figure and a few conversion pieces, whereas I've sunk enough time and effort into this figure at this point that I'm going to finish this Thousand Sons Chaos Lord how I envisioned him - and then ideally he will be going up for sale or possible eBay auction.


• The Forge World Renegade Psyker I have prepped, re-based and primed will finally be getting painted - ideally in a "test" color scheme for a Renegades and Heretics force allied with my Chaos Warband (The Disciples of the Four). I don't believe I've actually mentioned this yet, but the sole reason for my "going over to the side of Chaos" was Dan Abnett's descriptions of The Shriven - an army composed of workers and military support personnel of a Forge World "gone bad" - in his Gaunt's Ghosts series novel, "First and Only."
  
   I picked up the first Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibus in 2007 at the Black Library section at my first-ever Games Workshop Games Day while I stood in line to talk to Mr. Abnett, who was the guest author in Chicago that year. I'll repeat here more or less what I told him when I finally got up to the front of the line where he was chatting and signing: "I'm not going to say I'm your biggest fan, because it would be a bold-faced lie. I grabbed this book more for something to read through while I waited in line to talk to you and I've never read anything else you've written before. l will say this, though: in just going through the first few chapters here, I have to say you've got a hell of a great writing style and I've found myself completely drawn in and wanting to read more. Your descriptions are excellent and I can picture everything in my head, and the characterization and dialogue are very well-written. I'm really looking forwards to reading more by you." Well, ten or so of Dan's books on my bookshelf in and a metric crap-ton of unassembled GW Chaos miniatures in the basement later, and the sentiment still stands. I started working on a force of The Shriven shortly after getting back from Games Day, had a slight change of direction following the release of the Chaos Space Marines Codex and the "fading out" of support for The Lost and the Damned, and then got completely sidetracked with other "new and shiny" stuff since then.
  
   Things have come full circle - the three Siege of Vraks books from Forge World have re-ignited my motivation to have a combined Renegade and Chaos Marine force, and all the ideas kicking around since July of '07 are gnawing their way out of my head in new and more simplified ways. Oh, and if anyone happens to talk to Mr. Abnett - myself and a few unwholesome-looking individuals in body armor with green rubberized industrial protective equipment sewn into their flesh would like to have a word with him and bandy some ideas about.


• Progress on a 500+ point force of Bad Moons Orks in a "speed painted" scheme, ideally with a step-by-step painting piece or two. I blame the Assault on Black Reach set and some generous bitz-donating souls for these guys.


• Progress on a 500+ point force of converted Necrons tainted by millenia of slumber on a Tomb World in the general vicinity near where the Eye of Terror eventually opened up. They've spent their thousands upon thousands of years of dormancy basking in ambient output from one of the largest breaches by The Warp into real space. As a result, while they aren't servants of Chaos since they essentially have no mortal souls to be corrupted, their physical forms for the most part just "aren't quite right" due to the transmuting effects of Warp energy on material objects.
  
   After a "failed first attempt" at painting a Tau army to tabletop standards (I only ever finished a squad's worth - but they did get published on the Games Workshop US website as Honorable Mentions from the 2007 Chicago Golden Demons, so that's consolation) and abandonment of a plain ol' Ultramarines starter force from the Battle for Macragge set (blame Dan Abnett, as mentioned above), I set my sights on painting up some Necrons just for the sake of playing the game (hey, Necrons are easy to paint, right?) I even took shortcuts to speed things along (using spray paint as a base coat color, washes for shading, and simple edge highlights), but then my imagination kicked in after the first 3-4 Warriors and they started not to look so... regimented any more.


• A number of single-figure display-quality figures that right now are sitting lonely in boxes and blister packs near my painting desk in our basement.


• Heck, maybe even some of the several hundred old school Grenadier and Ral Partha figures that have been stowed away in drawers and boxes since I took a break from (or got sidetracked from) miniature painting when I first went away to college almost 17 years ago now.

So far as tentative planning goes, I'd say that's a fairly healthy list thus far. What do you guys think?

Weathering Reference Photos

 Last Friday on the way home from work at a new position in downtown Detroit, I figured I'd take my time driving and snap some photos of examples of environmental weathering, paint chipping, collapsed buildings, fire-damaged structures, and some unfortunate examples of "urban decay." I've had a number of jobs around Detroit over the years and have seen a lot of sights similar to the images further down - while I can't say it's not somewhat saddening, I also think these images make for good reference pictures for modeling different weathering/environmental effects. I added a few more pictures to the lot en route to other destinations this week, but essentially they are all in relative time/place order if one were to follow a slightly wandering path.

 Just for information's sake, I don't generally pick up a camera to go and shoot images of "urban decay" as a matter of course. Our cell phone plan allowed us to upgrade to Blackberry phones, and this initially began as me testing out the surprisingly good built-in camera after taking a detour past a major backup on the I-75 expressway. Another reason I went through areas I've been through many times before taking reference pictures of this kind of stuff is that I plan on replicating similar environmental effects as a basing theme of sorts for any figures I finish on several small 40K "armies" currently in progress.

 While there's a lot of nice parts of the city, by and large they are along the main roads and mostly centered around buildings/areas of significance. Sad, really, as there's a lot of cultural significance to many parts of Detroit. In contrast to "built up" areas, there's a great many midtown Detroit neighborhoods that have reverted back to a quasi-rural state, mostly from population relocation/abandonment. About a half mile from one of the "built up" areas of the city, for example, you might find yourself in an area of boarded-up buildings, razed plots of overgrown land, vacant properties used as dumping grounds, and the occasional long-term resident with no "neighbors" visible in any direction - that's essentially the case in the progression of photos here. I took most of these pictures along a trip north on Mack Ave from Woodward in midtown, west along Brush St to near Interstate 94, detoured slightly off the service drive of I-94 near Mt. Elliot, and then through one of the neighborhoods off northbound Gratiot about a mile or two south of 8 Mile Rd - essentially the rough boundary of northern Wayne County.

(Click on the thumbnails for 1024x768 res pics - 56K users beware!)

Corrugated metal, weathered wood and cinder block, likely gang tags, and (hopefully not visible) a family of feral cats amongst the trees/undergrowth



Closeup of weathered cinder block and rusted/heat damaged sheet metal vent


Rusted metal, weathered stacked plywood, overgrown concrete and damaged fencing


Burnt out timber and roofing, chipping painted wood


Overgrown burnt out building/vehicle w/ several overgrown gravel mounds in foreground


Collapsed building due to fire damage w/ collateral fire damage to adjacent brick


Burnt down structure being overgrown - surprised the heck out of me, but in stopping there briefly I flushed out a huge pheasant from the undergrowth nearest the former building


Naturally decaying brick facade due to exposure w/ staining/exposure on adjacent structure


Collapsing brick wall, chipping/peeling paint


Distance view of derelict factory-type structure


Images of effects of weathering/paint chipping/rusting/fire on various materials


Large patterned gold surface in daylight (I've been impressed with the appearance of the roof for a while, but never had a camera)


(Same as above, but from a different light/camera angle)


 I drove by some shady/depressing stuff for some of these pics - a few crack houses, a likely prostitute who noticed me parked and started towards the car before I drove on, the "bread van" making the rounds at one of the 24-hour warming centers for the city's homeless/indigent, a seagull exploding in a cloud of feathers in the middle of the street after being hit dead-on by a car and an outright not-so-subtle drug deal going down on one of the residential streets that (coincidentally?) had one of the better examples of a burned out building when I turned the corner at the end of the same block. Probably the only cheerful thing out of the whole lot would be the "donut 'n' coffee" shop, so I saved that for the end - it's been there for ages (and so is presumably good - dunno, I've never stopped in) but the golden metallic-paneled overhangs are a recent addition (past year or two) and look positively amazing on a nice day with sun.

If by some chance the owners of some of these "reference materials" would prefer me not to have a particular picture posted, lemme know and I will certainly take it down.