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Good afternoon all,

I trust I find you all well.
Let me introduce myself, I am The Guern, and having been out of the game pretty consistently for the last 15 years or so ( aside from the odd nostalgic splurge on some models which never got used) I have decided to get back into it following a kindly invitation to partake in a Necromunda league. Being in the quite pleasant position of having a modicum of disposable cash I agreed and thus, I am here, hoping to share with you my humble attempt at modelling my Necromunda gang. It is my sincerest hope that those of you who stumble upon this might, should you be of a kindly disposition, be so good as to provide whatever counsel you can , so that I may in time improve my (sadly lacking) modelling abilities.

So with out further ado let me provide you with some pictures for your expert consideration.

Welcome back man, we have a pretty great necromunda community here in P and M. I'll keep an eye out and notify the herd.

Also, you are way too nice haha.

Thank you Theophony, I hope to add my own voice to the community. Initially it can only be the odd word of praise in support of my fellow modellers, but I hope over time some of the accumulated wisdom of the remarkable plethora of talented modellers (such as yourself, I was looking at your terrain with awe just this morning) will begin to brush off and I will be able to weigh in with some more helpful words.

Please accept my gratitude for taking the time to respond to a strangers post.

With Kind Regards

The Guern

Your well presented petition and kind words have stirred my heart and while I am no expert I shall provide what counsel I can.
Firstly, the sniper is very cool.
Secondly, the GS work on the flamer guy is a bit rough.
I recommend you first flatten out a suitably sized and shaped piece of on GS and the gently appy it on the mini. Let it cure a bit before you start sculpting the proper shape. Lube and clay shapers (and patience) are highly recommended. Also, don't press too hard when sculpting and don't add too much GS straight away. It's easier to add that to remove.
Thirdly, the grenade launcher looks a bit big to be wielded one handed. Not that big a deal though.
Great start and sorry if I sound a bit harsh.

you sir have spurred my interest...
showing some very nice conversions here certainly wets my appetite for more...

hope you will let deeds follow your grand speech and you show us what your vision of necromunda looks like

cheers, vik

Most important thing to remember about Necromunda. Rule #1: (the rule of cool) if you make it look cool, some cool(with story) or otherwise tie a concept to it that is cool and original, then who cares if it is plausible or not. One hand a grenade launcher? Well anyone can do it...once. Maybe this guy learned a trick or the gun has a compensator built in. I think the deathwatch guys had additional compensator/suspensions built into their guns, maybe this is a lost deathwatch weapon from a kill team that was wiped out by a genestealer cult, and this guy picked it up from the black market, or has connections to the cult. Don't let inexperience limit what you try to do, and never pitch that first mini that you do, it's always good to look back at in ten years or so.

well... to be fair... he is just waving it about... and it has a stock... so all options are go for me

Dear Friends, thank you for your kind words; your advice is invaluable as I try to progress my skills.

@Ignadis, Sincerest thanks for your advice about greenstuff, I have disrobed Flamer-guy and attempted to rework his coat, results are below. Whilst still not great I do think it is better than it was. Any further counsel would be gratefully recieved. Also I have shortened Mike's grenade launcher, only by a short amount but again I think it improves the model's composition.

@Theophony Fear not fluff is coming shortly!

@Viktor thankyou for your support Herr Von Doom. You ask in your thread where I am from... Well, I am the Guern and I am from Guernsey. A small island in the English Channel off the coast of France. Along with the other Channel Islands we constitute the last remaining holdings of the Medieval Duchy of Normandy who took the English throne in 1066. As such we are considered Crown Dependencies, although the island's fealty is not to the Crown of the British monarch but to the Duke of Normandy (who currently happens to be the Queen of England).

Without further ado.... pictures

Dear friends,

here are a few extra pictures of some old miniatures from a few years ago that I may or may not update.

The greenstuff work looks good, I've never taken the time to practice sculpting, just not part of what I enjoy. I've seen that clown mini before, just can't remember the name of the game it came from, but they have some seriously nice models. They price was just higher than what I'd pay per model for.

well... that damsel sure deserves a better and more closely observing

that clown is very disturbing on the other hand

I fear while you regain (I just follow your own description here...as I am thinking you are doing a great job already...) sculpting and modelling prowess...your skill of taking pics is lacking a certain something... lest focus

and thanks for explaining...I still remember the very complicated structure of the common wealth system... for a german this is rather more than a mushy brain like me will ever be able to grasp in the fullest ...and I have seen a funny explaining vid via youtube once too... but yeah... so you live on direct crown territory?... does this entail some special differences' to what the laymen would call the average brit?

cheers, vik

I love how in each and every post The Guern seems to be writing a formal letter. Classy

Out of the original 3, I really like the Sniper. Not only is the model my favorite one out of the Cultist models, you did a great job reposing and switching the auto-gun with a scoped rifle. Nice modeling skills!

The shotgun to Grenade Launcher looks great too. And there's nothing as "Too big" in the 40k universe

I'm very curious about the girl miniature. It has a very "Lara Croft" feel to her. Do you remember where is it from?

Love the GS coat on the flamer! Wow..see we Americans have no idea what "old" is, you're talking about things from Medieval law, while most Americans think the 1950s was like TV

Good evening Friends,

I trust this latest correspondence finds you all well?

Things, I must confess, are moving slowly here. I must apologise to you all for the tardiness of this post and feel it is my duty to inform you that later updates will perhaps be sporadic. However I hope to promise you all an update at least fortnightly. Your comments and encouragement so far has been both informative and uplifting and I must say again how grateful I am to have such prestigious and prodigious talents popping their heads around my all too shoddy door to inspect my humble offerings. I wish to promise you all that any improvements I make in this hobby are thanks only to the wonderful community you bring such warmth to.

I mentioned at the start of this note that things here are moving slowly, but friends, we are not without some progress.... minor admittedly and thus I would like to present you with some photographic evidence of aforementioned progress for your perusal. I should be much grateful if anyone would take the time to offer any titbits of insight or morsels of advice. To this end I shall if it isn't too forward I should like to ask you some questions....

1) I am currently using vallejo game colour paints, I find that they are very thick and difficult to apply..... I suspect the answer will be to water them down, and with this in mind I attempted such, placing a few drops of my colour onto a tile and mixing with the a few drops of water. I found the paint very quickly became too runny and left little if any pigment on my miniature. I would be grateful if anyone knows of a helpful tutorial on watering down paint.

2) Washes and Inks; I having read some of the excellent painting tutorials here on Dakka am eager to try these techniques, does anyone have any reccomendations as to where to start in purchasing the former? Good brands? or perhaps brands to avoid?

3) Pin vice and bits; It has become impressed on me the importance od drilling barrels. To this end I recently purchased a pin vice and the bits to accompany it. Now despite both the drill and the bits being produced by the same manufacturer, the drills chuck only closes enough to secure the largest two bits, perhaps the two lest useful in the set... (I have at least managed to drill the grenade launcher). Does anyone know of a good source for buying replacement chucks for a pin vice drill? preferably chucks that close all the way....

Lastly @TheDraconicLord - If memory serves the model is from reaper minis, if what you are searching for particularly is a Lara Croft Mini I have attached a photo of a mini I have used for Roleplaying which may suit your purposes better.... this one is from hasslefree minis and is part of their adventurer range I think.

With Kind regards

The Guern

They are coming along nicely. I haven't used Vallejo paints often, once or twice, but hear good things about it. I've started using. Thinner with all my paints, mostly GW, and am getting a lot better used from the paints now.

As for the gun barrels. I prefer mine drilled, but to each their own.

Edit:since you asked me questions in my blog I thought I'd turn the table on you. If its not to personal, or if your not in witness relocation, can you give me a hint of where in the world you are? Your flag says undisclosed , makes me think your on a top secret mission somewhere. If you'd rather not say that's alright, we even allow Germans around here though(looks at Viktor Von Domm)

Dear Theophony,

I am happy to share, I live on a small island off the coast of France called Guernsey. It's about 15 miles long and 7 miles wide and lies in the English Channel.

Our sister island Jersey which is slightly bigger (and, I am obligated as a true Guern to tell you, also smellier), lends it's name to your countries state of New Jersey, whilst New Guernsey was cruelly rejected in favour of New York following the city's time as New Amsterdam.

With Kind Regards

The Guern

That's awesome, I was typing in the guern, and my spellchecker switched it to guernsey, and I thought "cow". Your sister island being jersey made me laugh because that is another form of cow . So is the main language there French then? Or have the English ruined another country ?

I've smelled the New Jersey Turnpike..I can vouch for the smelly part!

@Theo
Dear Theophony,

As you quite rightly thought the two breeds of cow originate in the two islands. As for language, the native tongue was called guernseaise and was spoke pretty universaly in the island up until the end of World War 2, it is probably best describes as a sort of french dialect or patois. During the Second world war the islands children were evacuated to the UK where they stayed for the 6 years of Nazi occupation. On their return many had lost their mother tongue having been spread out across the length and breadth of Britain. Guernsey French has been slowly dying since and realistically now only a few people in my grandfather's generation could claim to speak it fluently, though most of us do have a few words.

A la perchoine mon vieux

The Guern


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@ Dsteingass
Dear Dsteinglass

Clearly a classic example of nominative determinism.

With Kind Regards

The Guern

My God! This is amazing! I was born on Guernsey in St Martins and lived there for 8 years! It's so cool to see someone else from there! Haha this is great, welcome back to the hobby my friend. The cultists are looking sweet! The hunting rifle cultist in my opinion looks awesome

LDP

Dear Lipsdapips,

Lovely to hear from a fellow Guern, thankyou so much for the compliments.

with Kind Regards

The (perhaps I should change that to "A") Guern

It's a guernsey invasion! Run for your lives , its always fun to see connections like this pop up from time to time. Saw you threw your hat into the bad ass competition, can't wait to see what you make

At "the" guern (you will stay for me the one and only forevermore!)
I have to say it is always a pleasure to read your comments. They show with a spark of hope, there are still those that treasure the language instead of torturing it...like me

Now make haste and show us yon hero!

Dear Vik and Theo,

Whilst my skills are modest, I know that it is only in the doing that they might improve.
It is truly great that Dakka provides competions like this to give us a forum to engage in creative practices outside of what we might normally attempt. In writing they often term such things "prompts" and are a great way to hone your craft and expand upon the skills we already have.

Thankyou both for your encourgagment, it is all to easy when you join a new forum to become intimidated by the existing community and leave it before you ever really started. It is people like yourselves that make Dakka such a welcoming place and inspire those of us who a tentatively picking up a long forgotten skill the kind words and motivation we need.

I hope that my entry will give you both some satisfaction knowing that despite it's lack of accomplished skill it is a step that you both (along with such other luminaries as Dsteingass and Baiyuan to name but two) have inspired me to take.

With Kind Regards

The Guern


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Postscript: Photo's (non-entry related) to be posted tonight

It really is a good group we have here! Lots of inspiring and encouraging one another.

Or even to take us down a peg :p

Dave Shows us often why modesty is needed

no way....Guern said it basically, you get better simply by building more. Each time you add a new technique or increased skill to the project and get better. That is why each terrain piece gets better

I said I'd visit your blog and so I am. Apologies for my tardiness it completely slipped my mind although that's no excuse.

I'm glad I remembered because I'm really intrigued by what your working on. Some really cool conversions, can't wait for more pictures. More Necromunda is always welcome. Better pictures would definitely be nice though so I can get a better idea of what your up to. There's some great articles on photography here on Dakka, accessible via 'Articles' at the top of the page. You should be able to get a lot more out of even the simplest camera with them as a guide.

Also, to echo TDL, the way you write each post so formally is uber classy and you have my utmost respect for doing so. Absolutely love that, dude. Feel free to loosen up though if you'd like to, we are quite informal around here for the main part. Having said that, you being a refreshing gentlemanly air to the place.

Thanks again for posting on my blog, hope to get some more Necromunda updates soon. And I have a specific Necromunda blog too if you're interested. Link in my signature below. So yeah, welcome to the site and back to the hobby. Keep doing what your doing, mate.

Dear all,

My sincere apologies for the lack of update last night. It had slipped my mind that I was supposed to attend the theatre with the pleasant young lady who kindly agrees to court with me. Tonight I am afraid is RPG night but I will do my utmost to get something posted before hand.

With Kind Regards

The Guern

@Casey's Law

Dear Casey

Your kind words are much appreciated.
I agree of course that my photography leaves something to be desired, it is due to the use of a camera phone that if we're generous might best be described as "past it's prime". I will do my best to borrow a better camera on occasion but I am afraid that buying a new one is a little out of reach for the next month or so.

Regarding my style of posting; I am sure you, and others, are aware it is mostly pretension, a character that I am assuming for these posts, I am quite enjoying it though so I think it will continue until either I am bored or it annoys someone.

I will be sure to come visiting at your Necromunda blog also.

With Kind Regards

The Guern

I applaud your writing, only thing that annoys me about it is I could never mimic it .