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So, it's been a bit. Where've I gone? Reconstructive neck surgery. I had a ligament turn to bone, pierce my spinal sack, and nearly the cord. I am still in the hospital but I am looking at a couple more days therapy before release. So it'll be a bit before working on more painting.

Wow, nice DW!

Good lord that sounds like no fun! When I disappear for weeks, its cause i've been too lazy to get things done, sounds like a painful excuse to have though :(

Feel better!

 GrimDork wrote:
Good lord that sounds like no fun! When I disappear for weeks, its cause i've been too lazy to get things done, sounds like a painful excuse to have though :(

Feel better!

Well, great news is that I was eligible for outpatient therapy which can happen from home, and here I am, discharged to be with my girlfriend for a few months while on disability leave from work. Wooooo!

Its good to stay busy!

I went over the white on the apothecary of an oil wash of Winsor and Newton brand Cerulean blue after some feedback. This strengthened the shadows. To give you an idea o how runny this stuff is and see how it's poured down into the crevasses of the arm ( a 0 sized synthetic with mineral spirits cleared it out). This fills out your model's crevasses very, very fast.

Personally, i'm not a fan of the blue over the white. Everything else looks great though.

I wonder if it'll look better when it's finished?

Zambro wrote:
Personally, i'm not a fan of the blue over the white. Everything else looks great though.

I wonder if it'll look better when it's finished?

Well, white is defined by its shadows. I've always felt that a colder, bluer base worked better for surgical/cold white, whereas the more organic white of the majority of the armor is defined by the browner/earthier shadows.

And, of course, once details are picked out, that'll make a big change.

As a get well present for my recent surgery all my coworkers got together and bought me a copy of Sammael (Ravenwing Master). I even got lucky and haven't found any standard Finecast flaws in it.

I've got some really awesome friends.

Sweet action! RW sounds like it would be fun to play on occasion. He's burried under a mile of terminators though, so you had better get crackin!

I received my box of Reaper Bones minis over the weekend. As a quick aside, I wanted to test to see how fast I could paint a 'ghost' mini using their translucent green minis. So I spent yesterday sorting them a bit and then tried one mini as a quick break from my Deathwing.

I used a thin wash of Reaper MSP 09010 Pine Green (1 part paint, 1 part mixing medium, 2 parts water) over the mini. I then drybrushed it with P3 Necrotite (neon) green. I spent more time waiting for the wash to dry than actually painting it.




Also, too, you can see the current state my of Deathwing behind the ghost. Reds and Greens have been done. Moving on to steel colors next.

Its a tad out of focus but it looks fairly ghostly to me. Green isn't my first thought for ghosts but its interesting at any rate.

Sounds pretty quick too.

 GrimDork wrote:
Its a tad out of focus but it looks fairly ghostly to me. Green isn't my first thought for ghosts but its interesting at any rate.

Sounds pretty quick too.

I know. The Deathwing in the background ended up in better focus. Didn't feel like pulling the camera back out though. I'm being lazy during my convalescence.

But it was fast and quick. When it's just going to be a monster in a D&D game, that's all I need.

For sure . Anything with 3 dimensions is much better than the little cardboard chips with monster faces on them you can cut out of the back of the book I mean those are better than beads, but minis usually make D&D more fun.

Slowly but surely. Got the blacks done (as I needed to do those before steel). Tried out Reaper MSP Pure Black and it covers really, really well with just a touch of medium and water to thin it. I like it. I just can't spend that much time at the table looking down due to my neck atm. So hour or two painting sessions is all I'm up for.

Ugh.

Where to begin?

It's been a long time since I've posted and since I've painted. On April 1, 2013, I have to have a double cervical spinal fusion performed on my neck and that essentially disabled me. Couldn't drive, couldn't work, couldn't even lift more than 2.5 kilograms (about 5 pounds in US terms). Three weeks after release, I'm out of the hospital and getting better and then I found out there's an infection in the wound. Back to the hospital and two more surgeries are required. Thanks to a truly gifted wound care specialist, I am past that scary moment.

These have not been a pleasant two months, but I'm on the mend and I'm picking up the brushes when and where I can. Considering my ceramic palette is on the upper end of what I'm allowed to carry (never mind my case full of paint), this has been a slow process. A project I thought I'd have done a week after I got out of the hospital due to the free time I would have (hah!) took much longer.

Healing takes a lot out of you, including any desire to do work on hobbies. Post operative exhaustion is something, having now experienced it, that gives new meaning to the term 'bone tired'. There's a level of tired you can be that just cannot be fought and is truly overwhelming. I didn't realize this before, but I am intimately familiar with it now.

This last week though, my energy has increased, my boredom has hit max levels, and I sat down and finished my ranged brigade of Deathwing terminators. These pictures come after only a few hours beyond the Testor's Dullcote drying on them. I had to go over them a few times having found that my hands were shaky on my initial work post operation.

These models were half done when the surgery happened. Armor + some details. See if you can spot what came after the surgery. I do feel there was some degradation due to my unsteady hands (they have improved).




And showing that I have magnetized the Cyclone Missile Launchers (there are two TH/SS terminators who also have received magnets but have not been painted):

Sheesh! When it rains it pours, huh? I wondered if there was a complication given how long you've been away from updating.

Glad to see you're back on the horse (so to speak) and the models look quite alright.

So, that beautiful Sammael model that the guys from work bought me as a get well present? I determined I wanted to see it assembled and painted before I got back to work.

I started "Model Prep", the standard cleaning it, taking it off the sprues, and clearing mold lines, vent remains, dry fitting, and then finally assembly itself. Well, I couldn't tell on initial inspection, but when clearing out flash (loose product that forms in the miniscule space between two mold halves) it turns out that a section of the model didn't have flash on it, but had in fact been formed hollow. In attempting to carefully remove the flash, the underslung Plasma gun on the model collapses in on itself, revealing the interior to be an air bubble. When I inspected the model further, there were tiny bubbles all over it, giving it a bumpy texture in places.

After the issues with Belial (I did finally get a good one -- it took the CS rep breaking down, walking the floor, hand picking the sprues, and mailing them Fedex in non standard box), I am just really frakking done with Finecast. This wasn't just a random model I wanted to put together. My good, good friends took the time to find what I love and didn't have and get it for me. They did this without prompting and out of the kindness of their hearts and it utterly infuriates and devestates me at the same time. I had looked it over SEVERAL times and thought I had a good model. Only the model prep revealed the failings of the manufacturing process. So much was hidden by the utterly ridiculous amount of venting on the sprue as nearly all the bubbles/faults appear near the mold line/vents.

I cannot tell you how furious I have been all evening. I haven't wanted to TOUCH another model since this.

Glad your on the mend. My wife's grandfather had pretty much the same surgeries, but got a staff infection from it. Now he must get daily antibiotics for the remainder of his life as the infection really attacked his whole body. Good luck with the recovery progress.

The models you painted look awesome. Very nice job on the colors.

I haven't gotten any finecast because of issues like you mention. I have looked them over at the stores, but continue to pass from the flash I see on them.

Gah! Cursed fail cast. Your struggles with gas new stuff makes me glad I'm steering away from them. so sorry to hear that they defected a gift of that nature.

Theophony wrote:Glad your on the mend. My wife's grandfather had pretty much the same surgeries, but got a staff infection from it. Now he must get daily antibiotics for the remainder of his life as the infection really attacked his whole body. Good luck with the recovery progress.

The models you painted look awesome. Very nice job on the colors.

I haven't gotten any finecast because of issues like you mention. I have looked them over at the stores, but continue to pass from the flash I see on them.

Sorry to hear that. Infection was a constant fear and it was, unfortunately, realized. I am dutifully thankful for the luck that it was a surface infection only, and did not extend into the tissue deeply after it was debrided (reopened, cleaned, closed) by the surgeon.

As for Finecast, at this stage, I would recommend no one ever, ever purchase any of it. It is drek. Truly awful.

GrimDork wrote:Gah! Cursed fail cast. Your struggles with gas new stuff makes me glad I'm steering away from them. so sorry to hear that they defected a gift of that nature.

Yeah. It's infuriating. I've had very poor luck with it so far, and as a consumer, I feel I shouldn't be needing to rely on luck. I don't expect a 50/50 fail chance when I purchase a loaf of bread or a wrench. I'll do what I did with Belial, though, and will make GW replace it until it's a good version. They can eat these costs as a lesson in how not to make models.

Well, I changed up what my painting schedule was. As a reward for painting all those terminators I sat down and did a special character. I just finished painting Azrael and the Watchers in the Dark that accompany him and the Deathwing boxed sets. This gives me Azrael and three Watcher models. The watchers were immensely easy, painting up over the course of an afternoon. Azrael I took special consideration and time on as he'll be a centerpiece model, being the Supreme Commander of the Dark Angels.

He follows the black color scheme that the rest of my power armored Dark Angels follow. I, of course, tried to add in some DA Green where I could to give my usual nod to the modern studio scheme for the chapter. The rest of the post will be image heavy from here:

Pretty sweet. Its good to reward hard "work" with something fun, now and then

Thanks, Grim. He didn't take anywhere near as long as I thought he would. Maybe 8-10 hours total. It helps that I knew exactly what I wanted to do with him.

Now on to the next set of terminators + Belial. Belial is getting magnetized between TH/SS and SoS/SB. The remaining terminators are 5 TH/SS termies and 5 Deathwing Knights and the Champion (with Blade of Caliban) from the command squad.

I've started today with primering Army Painter Bone. Already had one mishap (ugh). One of the smaller pieces caught sail as I was primering and rolled into a puddle of primer, obliterating all detail. This happened to be the upper torso of the Deathwing Knight sergeant, so I'm not happy about that. He's getting stripped now and will join the rest of the squad at a later date. Hopefully I'll be able to primer him seperately tomorrow, the still wet primer is already coming off the model in the Simple Green.

I hate messing models up with primer. Its not quite as bad as screwing them up with too much (or improperly shaken, etc) sealer, but it still sucks to have a setback at what is supposed to be an easy stage.

I was working on a squad of DV terminators but the amount of detail they put into the DV sculpts is a bit... intense... to put it nicely. I miss painting skaven and skeletons, could do 5-10 in what it takes to paint one of those stinking terminators with all of their fiddly bits

Ugh. So this is me decompressing after a horrific screwup on Belial.

So, that thing where I've said before -- always double check magnet polarities? Yeah. I didn't. I thought I had it marked right. I got the magnet in Belial's left torso twisted backwards and didn't realize until after I'd magnetized the arms. So... dig out two magnets or one? One it is. Glue used was Krazy Glue which I usually use on non-Plastic models due to the strength of the hold (joke's on me there).

Here's the correctly magnetized side:



Here are all the neatly magnetized arms (TH/SS and SoS/SB courtesy of spares from the Deathwing boxed set)



Here's the results of what you have to do to dig a magnet out of a Finecast torso:



Here is my sacrifice to the Blood God Khorne after one of my best drill bits snapped and the pin vise went straight into my ring finger:



But, there is somewhat good news -- After about 30 minutes of sculpting, I got the side reasonably close to original shape so I can sand it and re-drill the magnet hole after it cures overnight:



Showing that the sides are, in fact, even:

I'm only laughing cause i've done it at least half a dozen times so far. I usually get the torso right but I mess up an arm, lose half the surrounding plastic in the battle. Its rough, but it looks like you've got him on the right track!

Ok, primered up my next batch of terminators and got Belial correctly set up and primered. Here's what we're going with:

Eleven terminators (5 Knights, 5 TH/SS, 1 Champ) all primered bone for quick painting:


Belial primered black with his (working) magnetized arms:





And this is all the different FineCrap sprues I had to go through before I got the bodies and accessories I needed that were in usable shape. The side of the armored body is still smoother, after priming, on the side I resculpted than the original. It's embarrassing that it's this bad. I can't defend GW to ANYONE. My GF went WarmaHordes specifically due to MY frustrations as a modeler. Ugh. I'll soon be posting another P&M blog for Protectorate of Menoth.



As you can tell, Belial has been reposed. I used spare arms from the Deathwing boxed set (the Commander/Sergeant arms) and it was such smoother sailing on those arms in comparison to the rest.

Wowzers. Good customer service not making up for bad quality eh? Looked into warmahordes for a couple of minutes one day, didn't strike me, but I didn't give it much of a chance. However, a painting blog for such a thing, I could handle

The undercoated terminators look half-ready to go, always nice

Ok, I'm going to be taking a break from Dark Angels/40K. My heart's not in it at the moment. The more I stare at Belial and the Deathwing blob, the less I want to do it. I'm finding I'm having fun and success painting my protectorate. I may come back to DA, but not for a bit.

When I have time I'll start a new thread for the Protectorate (and eventually Skorne).

It doesn't hurt that the GF has gotten into Mini-gaming and wants to play WM/H and doesn't want to have anything to do with GW after reading up on their business (and seeing my frustrations with Finecrap). That an the local 40K scene is definitely dying with WM/H replacing. It's much easier to find a WM game than 40K game nearby.