Saturday 26 December 2015

After the initial hiccup...

... Things began to fly.  I wanted to make a thunderhawk since I first saw it on FW, but never got around to it until june last year was it?  I got some plastic bits cut for me, BUT it ended up a terrible money-waster, for the plastic couldn't be touched by any glue.  At all.  You know how normally, plastic cement melts the two surfaces together?  I had a crack at it with the blowtorch and it still didn't melt.  So I couldn't even purge the xenos filth with fire and brimstone.

Talking to my dad about this, he said he had a sheet off the tiny gas fridge we had in our old camper, that might work...?


Right now it's just too bloody hot in my hobby room for me to concentrate (I believe it's called heat syndrome, a thing I suffer from a lot) so I relocated into dad's workshop.  The wings were cut out-- again-- and put together in three layers to build up width.

Hideously rough.  They took ever so long to clean up after what the band-saw did.


 Observe, the middle layer I filled with a mosaic of scraps.  Waste not...
At the same time I was putting the body together.


 Dry-fitting looks promising.  The wings will be detachable for storage.

Also, as far as interior goes, I will be concentrating on that later.  In the form of a small box that'll slot in afterwards like the dollhouse form Arietty.

If you can't tell from the terribly messy photos, this isn't an ordinarily-shaped thunderhawk; because I can't copy anything to save my life, I'm calling it a Nastrond "Ringprow" pattern and hoping no-one'll mind.  It has an extended troop bay and ridiculously over-sized wings because reasons; maybe more lascannons for anti-air support and a cyclone missile launcher just behind the front door.  Under WYSIWYG rules I hope to make it work.

That is, if I even finish it.

D

Sunday 20 December 2015

God Murderer

'Give me my death!  My death!  My DEATH!'
                                      War-cry of the God-murderer


 
 
Planet-fall was in ninety hours.  Already the faint rumble of strike vessels testing their long-unused engines was echoing through the bleak fog over Mount Nowhere.  The three of them stood in a black valley beneath the walls of rust; Thollr's chaplain, Blodfjord's lexicanum and the apothecary Frosti.
'I dreamt last night,' chaplain Heilagr spoke into the fog with no intent of being heard, 'a child slew a giant, then cut off his own face with the muzzle of a pistol.'
''Tis some portent,' the librarian replied him.
'Snerra, We have a fallen son in our midst.'
'My lord...?'
'He is one of the 3rd;' the rare sound of the apothecary's voice ensured all who were near listened, 'I know of who you dreamt, my lord.  Sundr, his name, 2nd flokk flamer; I began to treat his migraines back on Rathus Prime, but they have only worsened and to the point where he can no longer see.'

'Then we must--'  the remark was not finished--  Snerra had heard the scream minutes before any of the others.  Before any a word spoken he had turned and begun to sprint up the cliff face on columns of black exhaust-- and before Heilagr could question the librarian's actions the air was rent with a broken, shrieking howl that echoed back and forth over the Astartes' heads before the darkness at last caught it and stilled it.
'Brother Sundr,' the chaplain hissed.  And they ran.

They reached at length the precipice where the members of Blotfjord 2nd made their Eyre, and found the lexicanum wrestling with the blood-slicked figure of Sundr, who, it seemed was intent on ripping his wrists to pieces with the screaming chain-knife in his hand; and though Snerra was in plate he struggled to contest with him.  The surprise and the speed at which it all happened had nulled the psychic might in his body and it took both Heilagr and Frosti to calm the trembling Sundr and cut out the chain-knife from his grip.  Blood wept from the Astartes' pores and his feathered body was convulsing with shivers of terror, terror, yes!
What but a vision would cause this?
'Calm him, calm him why do you not!'  Snerra flinched beneath the hissing noise of the chaplain's voice, 'he has had a vision, and he must confess it me, now, now!'

Presently the white face of brother Sundr was upwards turned to the pyramid-headed chaplain and his trembling hands were eclipsed in his black gauntlets.  No words were spoken for some hours, and when those hours passed, Sundr's lips parted and he said, 'I murdered Him.'
Snerra vented a despairing sigh of anguish and Frosti turned and hid his face in his hands.  If these words bothered the chaplain he did not show it.
'I... I had found a hallway,' Sundr tried again to overcome emotion, 'it led on for ever.  the bodies of people I did not know lined the walls, they plastered the floor and the ceiling was another floor above.  I was at the end of all things.  Asylum cells every step-- but-- but then-- but--'
'Calm yourself!'  Heilagr snapped, drawing a sharp intake of air from the Astartes before him.  'Did you see Him?  What-'
'I did!  Behind the iron bars at the hall's end, I saw Him!  But the hall led away behind him. and I couldn't reach Him, nor could I break the bars... I entered a door and found a ladder that--'
'Did He not speak?'  The Chaplain snapped, 'He spoke!'
'No he-- He, yes!  He spoke to me!'  Sundr was beginning to lose control.  He had managed a lash across his right wrist which now wept glittering crimson through the chaplain's iron fingers, and his anguish was so, that his haemastamen was no longer working.  'He said the Sagodjur Fjorlag would be returned to the joy of the VIIth legion if only I would listen, but I did not!  I could not, I was, I was too worried to find Him again... again... I descended to the end of the end's end and found nothing but a deeper drop and a round pit like a well I had to climb up out of; the walls rent my hands and so often I fell, I fell upon the dead bodies of my brothers.  Now I know who they were-- my own flokk...'
Trembling words collapsed into bleak silence that echoed on and on into the void until the chaplain shook Sundr's hands and insisted angrily that he continue.
'...He was dead!  I found Him laid out upon the floor a corpse!  No trace of death upon Him but the blood spilt from His lips across the walls... His armour was black with rust and burning now, all burning, oh Dorn, my Lord!'

Sundr broke down into fitful, agonised weeping, and would not be silenced for a great long while until Frosti at last produced a glass capsule and drove it's needle into the Astartes' neck.  Sundr spat blood and arched back with a cry, but was then still.
'He was my god...' he mumbled, 'He was my god and I murdered Him, murdered Him...'
Heilagr lifted the Astartes' gaze to somewhere where his own might have been and answered him with the damning words he remembered speaking on so many occasions like this before;
'No price will pay for your transgression; no sacrifice will clean your sin, not even death will do, no!  Arise, Murderer, and I will bear you forth to your new Doom.'

Sundr was then bound with chain and barbed strand and led to the depths of the reclusam amid an entorage of weeping flagellants and led on by Heilagr, until they reached the murderer's gate.  Beyond lay an iron gallows in a bare chamber without a door where he was hung, unfettered for a length of time even he could not comprehend, for all thought of sleep was driven from his mind by the horrible visions that plagued his closed eyes, even to blink he saw them; and so he shall go on to the end of his days when the lack of sleep drives him to suicide...




At the very end Sundr was given a new suit of plate, a black suit carven with words of shameful spite and hatred; he was led out and the reclusam presented him then with the great knife of Murderers before him, a horrible eviscerator they name the End of the end's end.  Sacrifices were made and the blame for the Primarch's death was laid upon Sundr and his weapons before they returned him in shame to the Chapter, a shallow husk filled with little more that resentful anger, a bitterness none of his former brothers could imagine, for they called him a god-murderer, and so he shall be beyond death.


Wargear:
Bolt pistol
frag & krak grenades

Lefthand Cross: There is only one of these suits of artificer armour.  Blackened with rust and age, for none deign to clean such abysmal plate, the only safeguard it grants the wearer is increased psychic might by the spirits of Murderers past.
It grants a 2+ invuln save and the murderer is capable of nullifying enemy psyker attacks directed at him; however, if he rolls a double 6 he himself Perils.


The end of the end's end:   Reputedly made from fragments of Storm's Teeth, the mighty chainblade of the Praetorian of Terra.  A weapon so unwieldy and enormous it is equipped with servitor-controlled grav-stabilisers.
***
I'm very, very pleased with this fellow, 'specially the servitor bound to the weapon.  Three weeks of dry-fitting really does pay off.  I'm sorry for the long-winded story; you see, the longer it takes to assemble and finish a character, the longer the fluff-- actually, I'm not sorry.  I thought, instead of listing off what he was made of, I could answer your questions if you have any, that'll be fun.

Bye-bye for now.


D

Monday 7 December 2015

More converted Astartes

I have suddenly had a bit of a creative kick and have done some more work on things; I have three more space marines painted, that's a thing, and two of them I'll be showing you now-- the third will have to wait for another post...

Well shit, if the camera didn't focus for me again
Once again, all incomplete but I hope you'll like them all the same. From right, we have two tactical brothers, an asylum Astartes who looks like he came from Mount Massive, a pyramid-headed chaplain because me and I'm strange, and two possibly sternguard veterans.  I'll let you study the picture to see exactly what I used.
...And horror of horrors, I have run out of WHFB chaos bodies!  I'm going to have to get some more at some point.


Slightly off-topic-- I'm not doing orkses.  Ever.  I just know that if I ever begin ANYTHING orky I will get so caught up in kitbashing that nothing, NOTHING will get done.
But here's a warboss anyway, with an icon for his bosspole.  He's actually for a duel scene I began a while ago.

O-kaay!  Painted models!


This fellow wears a modified suit of armour from the Unification wars; remember those days when Mk III didn't have a battle-helm able to move with the wearer's head?


I was compelled to make my own backpack.  There's pieces of GK and cultist, a chaos backpack, heavy flamer nozzles and a piece of rogue trader pack as well.  It was fun but Throne was it fiddly, particularly bending the guitar wire.



...Having taken the photos I realise the base isn't painted properly.  Oh well.


Dead I am the one, Exterminating son
Slipping through the trees, strangling the breeze...
 
And a heavy bolter.  Very, very pleased with this one; I don't want to boast but I think this is the most Blanchitsu I have painted a figure.  I think it's the liberal use of ryza rust and the sickly-looking candles, perhaps the fact I watched Rob Zombie's Dragula for inspiration.


I colour all my weapons looking at the 3rd ed 40K boxart (I love that picture to bits).  Lots of red/yellow chequers and odd pipe colours.

That veteran's chainsword has to be my favorite 7th ed era weapon.

So that's that.  Lot of work done, at least to my standard of work.  Now my desk is an utter mess where I tried to clear a bit to photograph on.  Oh well, time for a clean-up anyway.  Bye bye for now.

D

Thursday 19 November 2015

The Emperor's Peace


My dearest Fransicique, most beloved among women; grace to you and peace, by the grace of Throne and the fates.

Forgive this garish haste, love above all, I beg you.  To morrow, I will depart with the White Rose for Gothic with the brothers of my house.  We were needed long, long ago and it is almost too late.  For the sake of your sanity I will spare you but the barest of detail; that one we thought gone is no longer, he is returned from the Eye.
    My love, I fear this will be the last you will hear of me.  Do not trust to hope in my returning.  I will try to send word when I can but I doubt I could even do so, what with the whole sector at war... Oh, Fransicique, please don't speak to the lady Silenzi of our love, she cannot understand, she must not.

But... But how can I break this to you... My love, but Sir Loman Silenzi, my grandfather, he is wishing to take us into the Eye.  I fear his spiritual purity... yet so have I done for many years, I have awaited his fall, but he hides it, he hides it and none have seen it.  He still bows to Brillig's old masters.



There next was a great blank space where no words were written, then the next paragraph was in some scrawling text that did not match that above.


He will return and Brillig will return to the Old Ways; I am certain of it and for this reason I have left you my last possession; in the basement's basement under the manor, down where none have walked in centuries since it was left there to rot, once a shameful blot on our name, I give you now permission, fair Fransicique, to open the cell to the emperor's peace-- but my love, I implore you, open that cell only at the very, very, very end of need-- and when that end is most dire.
At the least your own suffering will be put to an end.

Do not blame yourself for my death, my love above all, and please, PLEASE do NOT take the White Rose as your own.  She is far too old and her fusion reactor is too unstable for anyone except ME to hope to control, I beg you LEAVE her corpse on the field where we fall.

I remain yours alone, my dearest one.

Seppo


P.S.  While being your ally, it is NOT your friend.  Listen for the footsteps in the hall, can you not hear it even now?
If you see it, even if you think you see it, or if you don't, you cannot escape it.


RUN.
RUN NOW.





Monday 16 November 2015

Too big for a G+ post

We all have to start saving somewhere.  I prefer old-fashioned squirreling.

So much going on right now, what to do, what to do... I finally decided to tidy my desk a little but there has been little change.  So instead, here are some more WiPs for you to look at.


This is my take on Lemartes for his appearance as a warden-chaplain for the Angels Encarmine.  Being extremely fond of this chaplain (despite never owning the piece) I decided to give Lemartes a power fist in place of a bolt pistol.  I'm not sure what to use for his crozius though, probably a fell bat...?  That'd look different.


I've got about seven death company lined up awaiting completion, but these are the only three I've gotten close to finishing.  Seeing as this Chapter has a great percentage of Brothers Taken, I will focus on the death company (jump packs when possible) and their transport.
 
Also, a matter of basing; while GW has not outlawed the old base size yet, I will be using  the new 32mm size for this army-- I will keep, however, the old 25mm for the Sagodjur Fjorlag.  While being more or less legion-like in their organisation they are a 6th ed army; 6th is precious to me and so it shall be.
...Please tell me I'm not alone in this?  I suppose I am.

not quite finished as always

I found some 2nd ed pieces and was very happy.  Now I can make proper suits of Mk X Gudbrandr.
 
 
Recently I've been playing Gungrave for the PS2, and while wondering where all the bullets come from I decided I wanted a gunslinger for my own Chapter; so I'm working on my own Beyond the Grave... with two storm bolters.  I've got the ejecting ammo casings from the ork sprue to attach to the sides.
... Oh yes!  I also found out how to replace the legs on the warriors of chaos!
 
The Chapter's Emperor's champion, given the title of God Murderer
And that's that, I suppose.  Hopefully next post I'll have something actually painted to show you.

D

P.S. Side project begins; I'm code-naming this "The Game" so if I mention it you'll know.

Sunday 8 November 2015

I'm not dead yet

Some happy music to listen to if you like.

At last, I'm back!  For the last month or so I have been laid low by some nasty cough that took everything out of me.  The hobby has suffered along with everything else, but hopefully it's all over now and I'll be a bit more regular with posting.
You see, I already had the virus which at the first I knew nothing about; I took my motorcycle down to Christchurch and passed through Mordor on the way home... and ended up with a cold as well.  That didn't help.

BUT NEVER mind it's all past now.  Hobby update time.

Found some miniatures I didn't know I had, in the dettol bath since LAST MONTH

My workspace suffered the most.  I'm hardly in the mood for tidying anyway but this is has gotten quite out of hand.  All I've wanted to do this last while is build Space Marines.  Observe:

Thirteen WiPs.  How sad am I


I decided on the pattern of power armour the Sagodjur Fjorlag use.  Mark X (x being unknown) Gudbrandr pattern.  Being mostly built of restored parts it can hardly be classed as a Mark, but the pattern possesses a number of components that other Marks do not-- such as the terminator-like faulds on the hips and the sabatons so susceptible to sand and grit they need leather over-boots.  They also wear cloakes of skin-- not animal skin, yet not flayed from their victims, but grown synthetically to a template by the apothecarion.

This one's for a duel scene.

...Moving on, I'm in the process of making two scenic bases using the crashed Aquila lander.  The screws are to magnetise the plastic to the wood after painting.



I was also going to be making some 9th legion successors just for a bit of fun; I've only made two death company and don't want to go any further until my GW order arrives.  I can't remember what I ordered now; think I got a BA tactical squad, flagellants, night lords upgrade pack...



I bought a boxful of random shit and found some real treasures, like four classic pintle-mounted storm bolters, two rogue trader lascannons and APC hatches and other things.


 And work begins on something big.  I'm sorry to say the second IK project fell through, but I'm sure I'll pick it up later.  Meanwhile I have some major greenstuffing to do... bye bye for now.

D



Saturday 10 October 2015

General hobby update: re-basing and some other things

To-day has been a bit busy; I'm taking my motorcycle all the way to Christchurch to-morrow, and though I'm only staying overnight I'm going to be terrible burned out for a while afterwards, so I'm throwing together a random lot of things on my desk for you to look at.


The more busy the character, the tidier the base

Firstly, I had to re-base my finished Astartes.  The system I'm using is thus; super-glue around the litter, sand over the top and another layer or two repeated.  It's not much but I don't really want the base to be too busy.  They have to be undercoated (previously I was using washes to colour the sand) and this is why re-basing was necessary.  But it's done now.


Three kabalite warriors assembled, seventeen more to go...  I thought it would look different and strange if you could see their faces but not those of the wytches.  It also means I need to get more dark elf kits, which is fine.
I think I've finally got macro zoom sorted out
Here's a little banner bearer made with a Watcher in the Dark.  He has genestealer claws for toes and a dragon snout poking out the end of his hood.  How cute.
The eagle's wingses need a bit of feathering but I'll do that later.







Finally, a WiP Thollr sergeant, with power fist and combat shield-- and the rest of his wargear.  The banner was kindly given me by G+ acquaintance Sebastian (thanks again by the way!) it's too heavy to magnetise so I drilled right through the backpack and used a piece of wire; this way it can still pop out for painting/storage.

And that's that.  A lot of random things.  Better go get my backpack ready; six hours ride to Christchurch tomorrow, Throne and fate-willing.  Bye-bye for now.

D