A Genestealer And A Rogue Psyker Walk Into A Bar...

"Ouch!"

(Man, that one never gets old.)

So what do a Genestealer and a Renegade Psyker actually have in common? Well, not much, but I added pages for the both of them to my painting website and there's now links in the Gallery. That is all the bad humor for the moment. Carry on.

Forge World Renegade Psyker [Finished 3/15/2010]

 I had some problems when the flat coat that I had brushed on to tone things down after a few touch-ups went slightly hazy, but I managed to fix the problem areas and everything seems to have dried without further complaint. I've played around with the colors on the base and added quite a few alternating layers of highlights and washes - I don't know what else I can do with this particular figure or the basing, so for all intents and purposes I'd say this Renegade Psyker is done. I've got other stuff I'm working on now, so I'm moving on.

 I painted this Renegade Psyker figure up as a "color test" of sorts to work out a scheme for my renegade Imperial Guard force based on The Shriven (of "Gaunt's Ghosts" novel fame). I was pretty sure on going with the "surgical green" rubberized gear for the majority of the troops, but it wasn't until right before I started painting this guy that I settled on a secondary color of olive drab (P3's Traitor Green, conveniently enough). The spot color on this guy of the bright blue was inspired by a writeup in White Dwarf of the 'Eavy Metal team hazing a competition of sorts in painting up Wizards from all the different colleges of magic - the darker blue of the Celestial Wizard's robes was a variation of the blue I used on my Chaos Sorceror of Tzeentch. It was a color I was already somewhat familiar with painting, and thought it would balance out the primary green and the heavy reliance on reds used in the rest of the painting.

So what do you think?

Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP [Update 2/28/2010]

 

  

  

  

 

Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP [Update 2/22/2010]

Been a few days since I've actually been able to sit down and do an update on the Renegade Psyker, but I got a chance to add in some off the effects to the base that I had hoped. Feedback would be appreciated:

I highlighted the exploding rubble on the base and deepened the shading in the crevices a bit more. I was aiming for a paint-blistered, scorched metal effect on the scrap of Rhino hatch being flung outwards - I'm curious as to people's opinions of that, and whether I came anywhere close in my attempt. The last piece was somewhat of an inspiration. My general impression of comments was that I needed to add some more color to the base without making it stand out awkwardly - I'm hoping a rusty spring fits the bill. I can go back and add a bit more in the way of orange for the rust, but I don't want to overdo it.

Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP [Update 2/13/2010]

 I finally settled on a secondary equipment (spot?) color for this guy, if not the rest of my eventual Shriven force:

 I think I'm about finished with the Renegade Psyker himself, and everything's been highlighted and weathered. I'd appreciate any feedback, though, especially if there's areas I've missed. I'd like to make the base seem a bit more "lively" - I fixed the coloration and bumped up the contrast in the painting itself but I don't really want to do "contrails" from the "psychic wave of force" or anything like that and I just realized I don't really know how to apply static grass since I've never used it before. (I've got some but I've never touched the stuff and never actually seen anyone using it firsthand.)

 Any opinions on the metals? I tried a new finishing technique with them, mostly visible on his backpack and the scrap plates on his thighs.

Forge World Renegade Psyker [Update 1/31/2010]

Here's some background fluff I wrote up and thought it would be worth posting here to hopefully get feedback on what people think:

The official regiment for him was the standing Planetary Defense Force of Fortis Binary. His fatigues are leftovers from his old standard-issue PDF gear and his outer jacket is made from a heavy all-weather fabric and worn to help deal with temperature and environmental changes, both naturally-occurring or accidentally self-induced. The rubberized vest underneath his jacket is cut down from a full CBRNe/hazmat protective suit which would have been worn by one of the regular manufactorum workers of Fortis Binary before the planet fell to Chaos, but is worn by this psyker now more as a barrier to any incidental contact with contaminants or biological/mutagenic poisons in the course of combat amongst the factory and munitorium ruins.

Although this Renegade Psyker is intended to be a member of The Shriven, and my background and theme is in part based from Dan Abnett's "First and Only" novel, for everything else I'm more or less making things up as I go along. I'm somewhat in the same boat as Dave Taylor with his Blood Pact army in-progress; only not nearly as talented, artistically inspirational, well-known, or in the market for a new tattoo. Okay, I'm nowhere near in the same boat as Dave Taylor, but I'm basing my force on something Dan Abnett came up with that was inspirational enough to form a tabletop army around, except I'm lacking in the finer precise details like "official insignia," "color scheme," and "general appearance" (see below the "Dave's Got Ink" heading on the above link).

 Oh, and I'm not actually griping about the lack of particulars for The Shriven, really; I guess it's a credit to Mr. Abnett that he's talented enough to get me buying more of his novels as I find them simply based on his authorship, and also keeping a steady flow of cash into Games Workshop's coffers on impulse purchases of tiny plastic and resin miniatures - it's my own damn fault, and I'm enjoying myself!


 As to the Renegade Psyker himself, I was able to get some painting done last night and finally settled on a spot color for this guy, if not the rest of my eventual Shriven force:

 I wouldn't mind hearing people's opinions on the colors thus far - I've still got a decent amount of work to go, but I'm thinking of going with a worn dark brown leather for his belt pouches and boots, and everything else from there ought to just be finishing things up highlight-wise with some added weathering.

Forge World Renegade Psyker [Update 12/24/2009]

 I've been looking through some recent White Dwarf issues for inspiration to find a blue-grey color scheme that would complement the orange-yellow undertones of this guy's skin and bone, and lo and behold, I even found a recipe of sorts to sort of base things off of that I can tweak to match my Rogue Psyker's coloration more precisely.

 My current progress (I'm trying to balance the image colors and brightness with this guy, 'cause he's all over the map, but I think this is fairly representative):

 The colors on his front side in the "head view" pic are in semi-shadow in my light box when taking the close up picture, so bear that in mind. I also took a back view pic, since it shows off the color of the fatigues a bit better (he's leaning forwards, so I've got a lot of exaggerated shading on his legs and belt area from the front. I also was playing around with color on his backpack - if I could get feedback on how it looks so far (still unfinished, of course.)


 So what do you guys think? I'd appreciate as much critique as anyone can dish out, since I think I'm a little rusty in the painting department and even more importantly, I'm using this as sort of a test figure for the planned color scheme of the rest of my Renegades and Heretics force - the main colors for my take on The Shriven will be the olive-brown drab fatigues and the "surgical green" that their CBRNe protective gear will be colored. (I already know he's a little glossy - that's on purpose, but it will be sorted out in the end.)

Nothing Lost, Nothing Gained

By Sethero:
All finished entries must be submitted via PM to Sethero by Sunday, December 20th at 1900hrs GMT.

 Competition deadline come and gone, and all of us in the house not feeling well this weekend. Mostly my son, who seems to have a stomach ache today or something going on that was prompting him to cry non-stop most of the morning. He's only had an hour and a half nap today, was crying went he finally fell asleep and is crying again now that he's woke up.

 I made a little progress early this morning before everyone else woke up, but looks like life wasn't on my side for this one. Only about half done, assuming we're talking straight painting without anything fancy like pigment powders or a first stab at oils - I'd contemplated trying them with this guy, but I think he's looking weathered enough already.


 Ah well, my first miniature in progress without having painted anything in about a year and I think he's coming along nicely... he's grossed out my wife, the nurse, who used to work in the Orthopedic Surgery unit at the hospital. (I must be doing something right, I think!)

Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP [Update 12/19/2009]

I was able to put in a decent amount of time today painting while my wife and daughter were out with her parents and my son was taking a good, solid nap due to not feeling well (of course, getting him to sleep took a while in itself.) Following this, it was off to a holiday get-together with my wife's parents and that side of the family. I had thought I'd not be able to paint any more and finish it before the closing deadline of the competition, but I suddenly realized a few hours ago that it was the 19th and not the 20th as I had thought. Maybe there's still hope...

Someone had asked elsewhere for a closeup of his face. Well, here it is - warts and all - now that everything's filled in and the details are actually visible. I'm somewhat stuck as to what color to paint his outer vest/jacket, and the eye lenses didn't turn out quite as vibrant as I had hoped. All the same, though, it's nice to be making progress on an excellent sculpt - been a pleasure to paint so far.

Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP [Update 12/13/2009]

 I've had a few hours here and there over the past few days to work a bit more on the Renegade Psyker - I have a somewhat "firm" deadline of sorts, since it's a figure that I'd like to enter into an informal painting competition (we're up to Mk. VII already!) currently running over at the Relicnews Painting & Modeling Forum and the final deadline for finished submissions is on the 20th.

 I'm feeling like I'm more or less done with the skin tones, barring maybe a highlight touch-up here or there - definitely open to suggestion, though, as it's been a while since I last painted any flesh tones. I basically sat down and played with a bunch of different colors worked in, trying to accentuate things towards the face and arms with warmer colors and have details "recede" somewhat further down the chest and stomach with cooler colors worked in. All the little details inset into his flesh still need to be painted, as does his exposed skull - the "exploding concrete and dust" figure base is simply a basecoat and a wash or two of color at this point and needs some highlighting, if nothing else.

 It all seems halfways decent to me, but then again, I was just happy to be painting. I'd definitely appreciate any comments or suggestions from other painters, since I don't really have anyone (other than a few people at the GW shop) who are physically available to "honestly and critically" review my work - it's always been that way, though. (My wife's not a big fan of the hobby, especially any figures that are inclined towards the "Nurgle" end of the scale...)

Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP [Update 12/6/2009]

 Well, this would mark the first time I've painted in just about a year - I kinda packed it in in December of '08 to get things ready for the birth of our son, who was due (and born) in February of '09. I suppose this next pic is rather a significant event, from that standpoint:

 The base's basecoat was actually the other night, but everything else was painted in a few hours this morning, including tidying up my work space in the basement. I guess right now could be considered by most to match what essentially amounts to a base color, no highlighting, with the skin tones and exposed bone going to be shaded in from here. (That's not actually how I painted him thus far, but that's neither here nor there... unless anyone really wants details.)


 I wouldn't mind any feedback since, again, it's been a little while since I've picked up a brush. (I've done quite a lot of assembly and conversion over the past year, and even was working on a conversion 'n' painting commission piece before the customer disappeared - nothing's ever quite made it to the painting stage, though. This guy is for an informal painting competition, and I think I'll maybe be able to finish by the deadline, barring anything cropping up.

* 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?

Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP [Update 8/7/2009]

 I finished flocking the dust cloud on the Renegade Psyker's base after quite a few hours' worth of work last night, and it's turned out pleasantly similar to the way I had originally envisioned it looking. I'm still a little undecided on whether I need to add more in the way of projecting "flung" rock or do any tidying up of the dust cloud effect anywhere - or if I should just leave things as-is and move on to priming and painting.

Here's two pictures of the figure as he currently stands:


 I'm hoping the impression coming across is that he's causing the pavement/ground in front of him to explode outwards in something like a concussive blast or "shock wave" - I thought the "head about to explode" posture was less than inspirational, even though the figure itself is great, and decided a dynamic base might make him look less "counterproductive" if fielded with a Chaos army.

 In between finishing the flocking of the base and attempting to take photos late last night, some areas that apparently didn't have enough glue/sealant started to crumble and it seemed like every time I fixed up one faulty area another one fell apart in my hands. I ended up going nuts with extra-thin CA glue and then painting over the entire thing (with semi-thinned Future) from a jar of my standard thinner mixture. Taking a look at him this morning, everything seems to have set nicely and I'm thinking short of any minor cosmetic changes, the next step will be priming everything and then setting to work on the painting.


 Our son was born in February (the week after I joined the ranks of the unemployed masses), and has kinda precluded painting due to his schedule and limited finances. I'm rather looking forwards to painting something again. Assembling and converting figures is nice, and it's something I can easily set down in order to take care of the kids and then pick up where I left off later in the evening or even several days afterwards - but despite the hassle of mixing colors, cleaning brushes, and safeguarding works-in-progress from nosy cats, I definitely miss painting...

Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP [Update 7/16/2009]

Well, (I think) I've finally finished filling out the concrete/dust cloud to the point where I'm relatively satisfied with it. It's been slow going, because the process is slightly involved and I've only been able to work on it in fits and starts. The side leaning directly away from the Psyker is mostly smooth and the outward dust cloud is fairly thin but is randomly "puffy" (like a cumulus cloud, I suppose) especially around the base of the flying concrete chunks - I'm assuming they'd have smallish contrails of dust when exploding outwards?




Any suggestions or feedback would be greatly appreciated! Is the thickness and/or presentation of the concrete dust cloud okay? Does it look like the front section of paving he is on exploding away from him?

When I've got it looking about right, I'm going to flock the dust cloud over with some extra-fine grit and add smaller pieces of the broken "concrete" material that were just too tiny to be pinned springing outwards from the figure.

I feel like an idiot!

 I went out of town with my family for the holiday weekend to visit with my wife's parents, with the plan of working on the basing of my Renegade Psyker when not busy with family stuff in order to finish adding texture and remaining "atmosphere" to it prior to priming. I had my box of tools with everything packed in (loaded for bear: sanding, cutting, filing, and scraping tools, several types of glue, brushes, my full set of Craftsman hobby pliers - you name it), three different tubs of ground cover texture (mixed gravel from individual grains to smallish rocks, dry kitty litter, and cornmeal), a separate tub with all my collected "scenic debris" for rubble and ruined machinery, several different jars of brush-on mixtures with varying concentrations of Future Floor Finish (it makes an excellent fixative for ground cover), and my Dremel set w/ carrying case (wasn't sure if I'd need to re-texture the ground cover if things didn't pan out). Now this isn't nearly as massive a gathering of gear as it might sound, since I have a few compartmentalized trays that hold a lot of this stuff (with the exception of the Dremel and assorted bits in its own carrying case) - but it took nearly an hour the nught before we left to get everything together from being scattered on my painting desk, and packed away for travel.)

 The Renegade Psyker as he currently stands, needing some bulking out of the base with added texture to represent a "concussion wave" of dust and shattered concrete:

 So it's just me and my 4-month-old son the day after we drive up - Dad got assigned baby detail as the rest of the family was out in town checking out garage sales and holiday festivities - and he falls asleep after his bottle around the time of his usual afternoon nap. I put him in his crib and he settles back down quickly, thankfully. With the baby monitor on and no need for the Dremel, I figger it's a perfect time to get everything out to start gluing the initial "dust cloud" onto the Psyker's base. Stuff gets moved out to a spare table in the back room, tubs of groud cover get unpacked, I get myself situated... that's when I realize that prior to leaving our house downstate, I never packed the based figure itself after setting it on the high shelf of the computer desk the night before to keep him from being toyed with by either of our jumping cats or "carefully" inspected by our 5-year-old daughter who loves her daddy's miniatures. Gah!

 At least I got to do some prepping and assembly on some of the Khorne Berzerkers for my Chaos Warband, since I also packed box of figure parts, but it wasn't at all what I was hoping to do - I'm chomping at the bit to get painting on this guy, but I want to finish tidying up the "visual effects" of the base first and get everything looking "just right" before moving on to the next step.


 Anyone else do something asinine like this when really looking forwards to working on a particular miniature?

Hey, look! He's standing on a base! (Forge World Renegade Psyker WIP)

 It's taken a while to get to this point, only being able to work in fits and starts. This is one of the Forge World Renegade Psykers I picked up at the Games Workshop Chicago Games Day in 2007. It's taken me a while to get around to work my way over to these guys, partly because there's been a certain "apprehension" in approaching this and the other Psyker - mostly the "it's made of resin!" thing. He is completely cleaned up so far as mold lines, excess material in a few spots, and tidying up things like the leveling of the soles of his boots, so he would properly fit on the pre-cast base from Secret Weapon Miniatures. He's soaking in a jar full of Simple Green along with extra broken chunks of hard resin from another source.


 This is actually the first Forge World piece I've worked on, although I've got a few others still in their packaging squirreled away at my painting desk. I've heard stories, both good and bad (and some really bad) about the quality of Forge World's figure casting and the ease to work with of their figures. I must say that although I was initially tentative in handling it, the resin isn't nearly as brittle as I thought it would be - nor as malleable. It was a pretty even mixture of the two in that I could deform some areas to shape by gentle pressure (trying to shape crevices, like the line around both shins where the boots meet his pants, for example) as well as by outright filing/sanding/Dremeling - the latter being important because it would've otherwise taken me forever to get rid of all traces of his now-unneeded slottabase tab. The expected mold lines were very light and none of the casting was mismatched. The only real complaints I have about the figure (and again, I don't really have a standard to compare it to) is that there appear to be multiple mold lines around the figure instead of just the one on a typical GW white metal or plastic figure. There was also some slight excess material in a few areas (front of his right shin, around the sides of the multiple tanks on his back), but nothing on a scale where it was unmanageable or covered details.

 Overall, I'd have to say I was quite pleased (and impressed) in prepping this Renegade Psyker figure. The level of detail on the guy is just amazing - I'm wishing I could sculpt even half as well - with things like 1/8" inset areas actually having crisp details at the bottom. He also cleaned up much easier than a comparable GW plastic piece, although a fair amount of this might be due to some tools I just started using in working on this guy - I'll be posting about these at a later time, but sufficent to say I was surprised at how apparently something unassuming such as a few new scraping tools can make such a big change (for the better) in my prepping of figures.

Bases, Demons, and Renegade Psykers

 What do they all have in common? Why, an unhealthy taint of the Fell Powers of Chaos, of course!

 First off, a big congratulations to Mathieu Fontaine, AKA akaranseth, and the rest of Team Montreal with their Golden Demon entries at Games Day Toronto! Mathieu's got pictures of his entries posted on his blog - two Silver Demons in the 40K Single Figure and Vehicle categories and a very much-deserved Gold in the 40K Monster category for his Khornate Terminator Lord on a Juggernaut. I've been following the progress on the Terminator Lord and Juggernaut for some time over in the Bolter & Chainsword's Works in Progress Forum (and to a lesser extent on the Team Canada forum site) and it's a beautiful piece. As an aside, that's actually the first time I've seen (or noticed in color) the back end of the fairly new Forge World Nurgle Blight Drone, and I have to say I'm much more impressed with the model now than I was initially - of course, it no doubt helps that Mathieu painted his excellently.


 For nigh the past 4 months, there's been a 40K-centered painting competition going on over at the RelicNews Painting & Modeling Forum. I'm entered in several categories - squad, single figure, and vehicle - and all in the upper level painting tier. (Well, don't tell any of them... but due to being out of work coupled with financial worries, the birth of our son with gastric reflux in February, and me now being a stay-at-home dad out of necessity's sake - although that's not bad in and of itself - I've had very little time for painting and there's likely a snowball's chance of my completing any of my projects in time for the upcoming deadline of the 27th here. Did I mention they're all essentially converted, some extensively?)

 Ah well... I do plan on following through with all the stuff I was going to enter, and I figger the quickest piece to work on is one of the Forge World Vraksian Renegade Psykers:


 I'm not adjusting the figure any - I like him just fine. I ideally plan on using the color scheme I worked out for a corrupted Imperial Guard force based on "The Shriven," from Dan Abnett's first Gaunt's Ghosts novel. The IG force didn't quite pan out (yet), but this psyker's going to see completion if I have to explode people's heads with my mind to do it. Oh yeah, and his base is in the process of conversion with a concept I'm not quite sure if I'll be able to pull off - those are the most fun, though, aren't they? It also involves "explosions!" (This sort of thing happens fairly often when I get a sudden inspiration. I couldn't just stop with the original "simple" plan of painting up Gandalf with object source lighting from his staff, for example, when I decided to enter the Golden Demons for the first time in Chicago in 2007 - I ended up with him converted and standing with staff held aloft and on an angle at the end of a counterbalanced 15" bridge span so as to resemble the "confronting the Balrog" scene from The Fellowship of the Ring.)


 So far as bases go, I recently received some test resin bases for "review" as it were, from a friend. (He's in the end stages of developing a line of self-cast custom basing for sale, but it's not "official" yet, so I'll just say that the stuff I received is all good, well-detailed, and that I would be perfectly happy using them for some of my display pieces.) Now, until this point I'd never actually used pre-sculpted decorative bases standalone as I'm generally used to adding my own texture and scenery, but I have to say I was definitely impressed with the crispness in appearance of the details and the overall busy-but-minimalist style - 2 different styles, actually.

 I did a bit of customization to it, at least from the standpoint of fitting it to a 25mm GW slottabase slightly offset, but the original resin basing is exactly the theme I'm aiming for with a Chaos Warband I've got in progress, The Disciples of the Four - I'm aiming for urban ruins and debris with the occasional odd patch of cracked asphalt and broken, cratered ground. Eventually I'd like a full scenic army display tray with metal insets for magnetized bases and all the fixin's... but my (short term) goal, at least with these guys, is to actually finish a legitimate 500 point playable force. In the 3-odd years since getting back into painting, I've done a lot of army "test" figures, but always seem to end up going overboard and putting more work and detail into them than I really should if I want to actually end up with a playable force some time in the next century. Anyways, the long and the short of it is that I am now a definite fan of these resin bases and can't wait to put the rest of my sample ones to use! Here's a picture of the base so far: