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 Nevelon wrote:
In progress is the stormraven. While I think I’m just going to glue it closed, right now it’s rubber banded together in case I need to access the insides for the turret work I have in mind. I’m doing the landing gear as retracted; it’s blocky enough without stuff sticking out at all angles. One thing I have in mind is to take one of the rear landing struts that I’m not using, and have it partially stick out the top turret ring. The guns could either be mounted on the top, or sides, of the strut. This should give the look of a gun that retracts into the body of the flyer for orbital drops, but pops up for combat. And should be lower profile then the big, blocky, servitor gunpod.

Quoting myself to show how it turned out. Or will, once I swap out the poster tack for glue/magnets. The landing gear has a nice sturdy hydraulics looks, so even if most of it is hidden inside the raven, the glimpses you get of it makes it looks like something that can actually move. From a realism POV, the guns actually do fit through the turret ring. The assault cannons are from the Ravenwing sprue, which are smaller then the ones in the SR kit. I’m not sure if I’m going to magnetize. I know I should, and it would be easy, but including space for the other guns might make me have to raise the turret a bit higher then I’d like, which would defeat the whole reason for the low-profile kitbash.

I think I might take the other strut and make an icarus LC mount from it. Balance the LC on one side with some sensors/lights on the other. Either the lights from the RW sprue or the radar dish from the accessory sprue. But that’s another project.

On the painting front I’ve got the DA marine from the DW force and a c-melta sternguard working their way across the bench. Working on the DW scheme before I do the Mantis Warrior librarian for Git’s contest. Right now I’m thinking black base, grey drybrush, grey highlight, black wash, re-highlight. Still putting down base coats on the details, so a ways to go before we see how it turns out. I’ll try to get pictures tomorrow of my progress for my Friday report.

It’s friday, so for those of you still reading, time for an update! For those of you not reading, Fine! I didn’t need you anyway. <sniff>



Here is the pic I promised yesterday. Progressing nicely at my normal, slow pace. Just did some touch ups on the DW marine’s black, and the wash on the SG’s grey; drying as I type this. The sternguard is almost ready for his second touch-up blue layer and final wash. Need to get a little BftBG on his reds and that should be basically it.

The Deathwatch marine needs to be greyed down, highlighted (which the drybrush might do enough of) and then inked. I want all the little channels and whatnots to be a darker shade then the flat plates of the armor. Which is hard when dealing with blacks. Reminds me of something my high school art teacher told me. “Reserve pure black/white for extreme highlights, as you can’t go any farther. You shouldn’t have more then a few points of each in your work.” This was working with greyscale charcoal and white pastels, but I think the principle holds here. Can’t say I’m enjoying working in shades of black, but I’m not though yet. At the very least, I’m painting something non-blue, so that’s a win.

Enjoy your weekends all,

C-melta done. Not sure if the black-grey-black is enough contrast on the DW marine. Might have to try a white highlight in there before the black ink. Almost done with him, just finishing up the bolter arm.

A nice few updates there, Nev.

That SR turret is a cool conversion!
Are you going to put a transfer on the shoulder pad for the sternguard? The shoulderpad looks a bit blank.

Transfers are something I tend to do in batches, and not as often as I should. It’s on the list of things to do, as I’ve got a pile of marines waiting for them. Waiting until I finished all the swaps for my company was my latest excuse, but that’s gone now. I don’t know how likely it will be, but I’m going to try to get everyone transferred and based by year’s end. And still make my one-a-week goal. I love deadlines, they make such a nice “woosh” when they fly by.

I’ve got the turret cleaned up, just need to figure out how to mount it. It needs to hover about an inch off the floor of the SR. I’d like to brace it against both the floor and a wall for stability, but need to cut some scraps of sprue for that. I’ve been trying to get more painting time, rather then building time, so it’s progressing slowly. Not helping is the fact that I’ve been playing Skyrm, rather then CivV lately, so there is less load/other players turn time on my computer to work during.



I cut some bent angle struts from the SR sprue, and mounted the turret from the roof. Next step is to start the final assembly on the raven. Not sure if I’ll bother to magnetize the hurricane bolters, or just use sticky tack to swap them around if needed. It shouldn’t be a hard retro fit if I change my mind.

Finished the DA DW marine. I was unable to tell the difference between his arm, which I just painted black, over the rest of his armor which received more work. Next marine is going to get more extreme highlights to try to stand out a bit. It’s also interesting to notice the similarities between the c-plama, which is black with a silver drybrush, and the DW arm, which is silver with a black wash.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It’s a busy weekend here.


A lot of parts are just set in place for now. The wings, engines, and pilot/cockpit will all be primed and painted seperatly. Still need to clean up the spare weapons (LCs, Huricanes) I’ve also not glued on the grapple/winch thing on the back. I kinda like it up top, rather then below. It looks more like a fueling port up top, and conveniently covers a gap in the hull there. If I change my mind I’ll have to greenstuff it. I need to stick some random grubbins around. Some aquilas and Ultra symbols left over from drop pods/tanks, and probably some tow hooks/ attachment points underneath for dread hauling, or up top to help fill the space.

I think the raven looks a lot cleaner without the huge servetor gun pod and air scoop up top. More like something that might actually fly. What was that air intake doing up there anyway? The engines are under the wings. On something like a land speeder you need that up there because the engines are right on the back. Not the case with the Raven.

Nice customization, looks great, and with added plausibility thrown in for good measure!

 Littletower wrote:
Nice customization, looks great, and with added plausibility thrown in for good measure!

Thanks.

A little mixed news today. I took a batch of stuff (including the raven) out to prime yesterday. As I knew my can of primer was running low, I went and got a new can. The core of the raven (body, wings, engines) took the last of the old can, and went on fine. The bits, extras, and two marines I was doing got half of the old can, but when I started to get them from a second angle with the new can: Fuzz. I know it’s not the weather, as the first coat went on smooth. I blame myself for not shaking the can enough. I was in a rush to finish, and it didn’t get the thorough shake I normally use, just a quick rattle. Which considering how full it was was a mistake in hindsight. On the bright side, I realized this right away and everything go tossed in the simple green.

Further on the downside, yesterday was the last good day in this week to prime. And as we are heading deeper into fall, who knows if I’ll get another window before winter hits.

Oh man... That sucks. At least you caught it and you are doing something about it. I hope you get a chance to re-prime these soon

How much you got primed at the minute? You're not short on primed stuff, are you?

I’ve got around two dozen relevant things primed. If I count the stuff hiding in the back of the bench, patiently waiting years for paint, I’ve got another two dozen-ish. So no worries about running out of things to do over the winter. It might just be skeleton warriors, chaos marauders, arcoflagelents, and some other random minis. I did spend an hour or so with a toothbrush, and the bad primer came off much easier then it did with the eldar last summer. Pro-tip: If you have a bad prime, dunk it immediately. Getting it in the simple green before it cured made it a lot easier to scrub.

Here is a recent pic of the crew awaiting paint:

(I posted it on the last page, but let’s go over what’s in there)
5 LotD counts-as
5 Deathwatch
2 Librarians (one JP, one DW mantis warrior)
1 Honor guard
2 RT captains
1 scout sarge
3 Vanguard vets
Razorback
Ven. dread
5 Dire avengers (under the razor)
1 ammo dump
1 chapter banner
1 c-melta sternguard

Since that picture was taken, I finished one DW marine and the c-melta.

Quick update: I was able to re-prime yesterday. It was just a matter of not shaking the can enough. That will teach me to be hasty. So to that last list of stuff ready for paint I can add:

Eldar Farseer
Deathwatch flamer
HG w/ relic blade
Stormraven

I also started to get some paint on two deathwatch marines; First coat of black is down on the White Scar and the Mantis Librarian.

O.o some Eldar?! Looking forward to it

 Zambro wrote:
O.o some Eldar?! Looking forward to it

Yup. One of the things about stripping the new stuff is it forced me to finish cleaning up the crimson hunter, which had been soaking for months. A lot of the old eldar stuff I had stripped didn’t get completely clean. While the fuzz is (mostly) gone, there is still some of the primer left on the model. So I also have a couple of jetbikes and the hunter that could get some paint. And I have a pot of khorne red to paint them with. It’s so nice to have a red that can cover.

As I sit down to build stuff, I’m struggling to thing of what I actually need built. A lot of the marine stuff is just going to fill out squads or collect dust. I’ve got a bunch of marine bodies, but not a lot of motivation on what to do with them. Getting 5 more vanguards done seems like a good idea, but I’ve not painted the ones I’ve built, or even fielded them, so there is not a huge rush on that. So my eye is starting to wander back to the pile of Eldar stuff I have sitting around. At this point, I doubt I’ll be able to get any of it ready for primer before winter hits, but I think a goal for the cold months might be to get it all built and ready by spring. I still need to get some magnets into the vehicles, and work a catapult onto a bike or two.

TL;DR: I’m old, some progress on Deathwatch (pic at bottom of page)

This is going to be one of those wall of text rambling posts. Feel free to skip to the bottom if you want to see the progress of my current project. I often joke that I’m old and decrepit. Today, I turn 40, so am feeling it. For years I’ve given thought to a retrospective piece about my history as a gamer. I probably should have put more effort into drafts and edits, but here’s a last minute, stream of consciousness post.
According to Dakka polls, that makes me older then ~94% of you guys out there. One more year and I’ll have to ask a mod if it’s possible to change your vote on a poll. While there might be older people out there, few have been gaming as long as I have. I literally cannot remember a time that I wasn’t playing some sort of RPG/wargame. I remember D&D (both basic and advanced) being played with my brother and kids from down the street from when I lived in New Hampshire. And we moved away from there when I was 10, and we had been playing for a few years. So probably very early eighties, with me being 6-8ish. Mostly just TSR stuff at the start; (A)D&D, Top Secret, and Star Frontiers. Wargameing didn’t really take off until we moved to Kentucky.
While my gaming group in KY did some roleplaying (including long running AD&D and Shadowrun games among others) They were primarily wargamers. We played a lot of Battletech, Car Wars, SFB, OGRE, and other board/beer and pretzel games. Rouge Trader 40k as more of a RPG. I remember the first minis we had. Before that day, when we were playing D&D, if we needed a map, you just used a die or a bottlecap to show where your character was. But one day my friend Dave brought over some grenadier minis. Actual fighters. wizards, etc! It was glorious. We happily used (and expanded out collection) unpainted minis for a while. Then, once again, Dave raised the bar. He had painted the mini he was using for his character. You can tell it made an impact, because here I am, over two decades later, still painting my own minis.
The next big shift in my gaming life was when I went to college (fall of ’93 for those keeping a timeline) I wanted to go to a small, liberal arts college in the north-east, and ended up in upstate New York. I didn’t game much on campus, but instead fell in with a group about half made up of townies. Primarily role-players, but this was also the time of CCGs, so there was a lot of that. I did bring up my paints, and this was about the time I switched from Blood Angels to Ultramarines. Sometime in the late 90, WHFB (5th ed) took off at the FLGS. I jumped back into GW with both feet, and put together sizable undead and chaos armies, with bits from a few others. 40k also re-emerged into my life, at the tail end of 2nd. I helped demo it and get people hooked. The mid 90s also saw me working professionally in the gaming world. I worked part time for The Magic Source, a mail-order game company. Mostly CCGs, but also RPGs and other random stuff. This let me go to some major conventions (Origins, Gencon) and buy a lot of stuff at wholesale prices. Also gave me some sneak-peeks into the behind the curtain of the hobby world. Fun times. Branched out into a lot of different games during this era. RPGs like WoD and Champions saw a lot of play, as well a large amount of experiments into odd systems. Tons of board games, including some more miniatures, like Silent Death
I’m not going to say life crashed to a halt in 2000, but that’s when I got married, so priorities shifted. I was no longer a single guy, living in a cheep apartment, with a big-boy job (and paycheck) but still living like a starving college student. Mortgage payment, and The Wife, who shortly after marriage went back to school, meant I had to be a responsible adult. Still a lot of gaming going on, but the heyday was in the past. I quit my job in 2003, so The Wife took over being the primary provider. Worked a few part time jobs until The Boy was born in’06, then I became a full time homekeeper.
Life’s been on a slow simmer for a while now. Budget is tight, being a single income family, but I slowly expand my collection as time allows. Still game twice a week with the RPG crowd, and get in wargameing when I can. Which is not that often, but a guy can dream. And blog, post, and kibitz with you guys here.

But enough of the ramblings of an old man. Progress!
(You TL;DR people can resume reading here)

Some deathwatch. The guy on the left is going to be a White Scar, the librarian on the left is going to be a Mantis Warrior. WS has received his black wash, so just needs to get his arms done and a detail check. The librarian is still at the drybrushed step. He’s got a lot more things that need to be picked out. I also need to decide what to do with the sword. Right now it’s silver with a gold hilt. I should do some sort of power effect on the blade, then dripping blood on the edge/tip. Might try to tint the blade with a wash, unsure. The shoulderpad is not going to stay yellow, but I wanted a vibrant undercoat to help make the green pop once I put it on. I might have to blend something, as neither the emerald or goblin greens I have seem quite right.

I think you may have a few models older than me in that case!
In all seriousness though, happy 40(k)th, the collection is looking great, can't wait to see those Deathwatch finished.

It’s hard to put an exact date on some of my minis. I know I was painting in the first house we lived in in Kentucky, and we moved to the new one in ~’91 IIRC; I know it was part of the way through high school. So probably in the late ’80s. I’d feel safe saying I’ve got minis that are around 25, but definitely nothing over 30.

Here are some of the very oldest ones. A mix of Ral Partha and Grenadier.


The elementals were some of my earliest forays into washes and drybrushing. I still like how the water elemental turned out. Hint of a green wash, and a nice whitecap drybrushed on.

Happy 40th!
Those mini's are older than me

Looking good on the progress front. What's with the difference in armour colour on the two death watch? I was under the impression traditional death watch is black armour. Got kind of a grey look going on with the mantis warrior. I assume that the unit will have the same armour colour. But which colour?

Deathwatch is all black, with a silver arm. The grey right now is me trying to get some definition in the armor by going with a black base, grey drybrush (with a lighter white/silver on the MW) and then a black ink wash. This should, in theory, let the black of the armor groves actually be black, while the plates are still black, just a lighter shade. The guy on the left got his inking, which is why he is actually black. The Mantis is a step behind, which is why he is grey at the moment. I just did some work on his sword. Put some light metallic green lightning bolt-ish lines on the sword, then a watered down blue wash on top of that. We’ll see how it look when it dries. Then he’s just about at the wash stage, and then the shoulder pad. Which is going to be a bear, as I need to freehand a Mantis Head on that sucker. I should have not glued the pad on, and just primed a dozen blank ones. So when I inevitably screw it up, I can just toss it into the cleaner and start over. Oh well. It’s just a two color insect head on a yellow background. How bad can that be to paint?

How do you get a clean circle with a paint that covers for crap? Negative space is your friend; paint everything not the circle. Next step is the chapter symbol, but that is going to require a steadier hand then the 3 cups of coffee in me allow, so probably this afternoon. If not, sometime next week, as I’m off on a weekend trip to visit family.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Well, I need to call it done at some point. Fiddling anymore with the Mantis is just going to end up looking gloppy.



More angles

I’ll work up the blurb tomorrow/early Friday. And maybe try to get some better pictures, not really happy with any of those angles.

Almost done with the White Scar Deathwatch marine. Just need to see how smooth the last white coat on his shoulder pad went on (might need another) then the transfer. Already based him at the same time as the librarian.

Good effort! That shoulderpad is great.
The thing about getting better with freehand is that you need to do it frequently to improve. More often than not, the hardest part is actually getting the courage to try.

I'm not sure what's going on with his arm (left arm). Looks kinda zombi-like to me - you know, out straight, no strength in the wrist/hand while the zombi ambles forward groaning...

Is that a complete base..?

The thought was to have him divining the path ahead, Not quite happy with the angle of the wrist. I wanted a casting pose, but not the traditional lightning shooting from the palm one. Head down, arm out, concentrating.

There is even a tuft of grass on that base, you can see it in the alternate angles. This pic is not the best of the lot, I chose it because it shows off the freehand the best.

New Librarian with two guys for backup.



As I write this, I realize I’ve not taken a personal close up of the DA. Oh well, I’ll see about getting one later. Probably when the squad is done.

Looking at the WS, I note I forgot to do the cable going from gun to scope, will have to fix that. What doesn’t show up in the pic is the bloody markings. Part of that is my crummy photo skills, the other is the BftBG on black, which is mostly just a redish sheen that shows up when the light hits it the right way. But our friendly White Scar did not feel right without his tribal markings on his armor, so painted some there in his enemy’s blood. Triangle on the helm (like my bike captain) and another one on his right shin.

Not been on in a while sorry mate. Happy 40th buddy, im not too far behind you and also have models as far back as 89.

Glad to see the deathwatch coming along d glad you are doing well.

 McManiak wrote:
Not been on in a while sorry mate. Happy 40th buddy, im not too far behind you and also have models as far back as 89.

Glad to see the deathwatch coming along d glad you are doing well.

Good to see you back around here. Thanks for the well wishes.

Just a quick update for now. This morning I shoveled about an inch of slushy wet snow off the driveway, so the odds of me getting to prime anything else before spring are approaching zero. I’ll continue to build stuff, but it’s just going to get chucked into a box until March/April-ish.

On the painting front, I put down the first blue coat on the jump librarian, and started some work on the HG with the axe. After the Deathwatch, I felt the need to paint something blue. I figure I’ll intersperse the DW into the normal rotation to help break things up a little.

Have you ever tried brush primer? I've never done it, personally, but it might be worth a look if you finish everything that is painted and have nothing to paint. Especially considering march/april is a long way away.

 Zambro wrote:
Have you ever tried brush primer? I've never done it, personally, but it might be worth a look if you finish everything that is painted and have nothing to paint. Especially considering march/april is a long way away.

Back in the day I did use GW’s “Smelly Primer” and it worked fine. Not quite the clean and even coat you get with a spray, but it did give the paint something to grab. Frankly, at the rate I work, I suspect I’ll be fine. Worst case scenario, I spend some more time building or paint some of the backlog of random stuff I’ve got waiting in the wings. By my quick math from the picture/list a few posts up, I’ve got 29 things to do, some of them being vehicles (which should take longer). At my pokey 1-a-week rate, that’s like half a year’s worth of work. Even if I double my efforts, that’s still ~15 weeks, so spring-ish. And it would do me some good to clear a little of the backlog.

So you're pretty much set, then.

Are you being affected by the snow? For some reason, the snow in NY / north America was the top story on the BBC's news website. From the look of the pictures I saw, you're not going to be priming any time soon

We just got a dusting. All the news worthy stuff is the western part of the state. It’s lake effect snow: the wind picks up moisture from the great lakes and then dumps it onto the land as snow. 6 feet in a storm is not that unusual, although I hear this one was a little rougher on them.

Librarian and HG are progressing well, I’ll try to get some WIPs later when I drag the camera out. Hopefully will have them done by the end of the weekend.

(edit for pic)

Doing my weekly update today, rather then Friday. Going on a road trip to Kentucky for the week, visiting the folks for Thanksgiving. Didn’t get as much done this weekend as I would have liked, although made some more progress then the last pic. Not enough to warrant dragging the camera out though. HG got his blue wash, so just needs the tabard done and his bolter arm finished. Librarian got another round of details worked on. For whatever reason I missed a lot the first time though; the gold tips on the leather belt thing, a red cord on his arm, and even a patch of blue on his foot.

Also in the news I picked up the hardback mini rulebook. So I now actually own a copy of 7th. I had previously borrowed my friends big book for a read through when it released, but lacked my own. While a bit pricy for what it is, I like the hardback over the soft; durability is nice. And it should fit easier in my bag. $58 is not that much more then the ~$40 the small rules were going for on e-bay, plus I don’t have to deal with S&H and get to use my store credit. Next step is to make my own objective and psychic cards. With the 2 year duration of 6th, there is no way I’m shelling out cash for play aids that might be obsolete in short order. There is a limit to how much money I’m willing to sink into hobby stuff that’s not a model.

I’ll be partially off-line for the next week. While I’m bringing my ipad on the trip, I won’t have the time to spend on Dakka that I normally do so will just be doing short responses and quips. Hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving, or generic week for you foreigners.

(as an aside, this should be my 5,000th post. Damn, I’m getting verbose in my old age)

Edit: Ancient Ultramarine Venerable Dreadnought. Sounds about right. Even in death, I serve.

Hm, thought that picture was a little less blurry when I uploaded it. Oh well. Almost done with the librarian’s jump pack. Just need to drybrush on some silver and give it the final touch up and wash. Next step is to do a recount of the year’s work, see how I’m doing for my goal. If I’m close, I might do a vehicle next. If not, I need to try to bang out some of the infantry. I should also check back for my new year’s goals. Pretty sure I missed most of them, but there is a chance I actually followed through on some of them.

I’ll try to do that by the end of the day, but I wanted to make sure I got a least a quick update to keep myself honest.