Posted 12:48 PM by Tim
I managed to get some painting done last night. Just a bit, mind you, but some, nonetheless.

I've sort of interjected a new project into the works of the Slaaneshi guys. After all, there's no chance in hell that I'll get any of them done in time for the end of the month. Well, I might stand a half-chance of getting the four done if I really applied myself to it, but that's not likely to have an opportunity - I've other things that need doing.

Anyway, the new project is Exorcists. Space Marines. I think I may have mentioned that I had my marines all packed up to be disposed, but nobody was buying... so, I've reclaimed them all. Good and bad news for me I suppose. While they were waiting for disposal, they met a couple of accidents. I guess I've got about 10 or 12 of them that need repairs - which has lead me to the thought that I should just disassemble all of them, and start from scratch with them. It's not a horrible idea, so I'm going to at least look into it. I've got a sneaking suspicion that most of the models are properly assembled, which means there's no way they're coming apart now. Not without some clippers and a lot of greenstuff work to repair the damages.

If nothing else, I'd at least like to try my hand at cleaning them up properly and giving them a good colour scheme for a nice unified look. We'll see what develops, eh?

As far as painting them goes, I've started with their landspeeder. It's horrible, and with luck, I can make it look good. Maybe. I've decided to challenge myself with it, and try painting the "proper" way. Thinned paints, multiple coats, successive layers of paints. I've tried this on one or two other models, and there's things that's good and bad about the process. I'm just wondering if this sort of thing will make the finished product look better or worse than expected. I suppose I'll know in a couple of weeks or so (yes, this process means the total painting time is very, very long). I'm not concerned about the time. The army isn't important.

Posted 12:25 PM by Tim
I took a few minutes and worked out the colours I want for my marine force (and the traits and drawbacks). I'm working with Codex Grey, Catachan Green, Skull White and Blood Red. The white will be on the helmets of the normal marines and on the squad markings., Blood Red helmets for Sergents, and Blood Red right kneepad (or greave if no kneepad) for veterans. Weapons will be kept simple: Chaos Black casings, Boltgun Metal metal bits. I'm going to avoid the use of gold on the models except for on ICs. I don't want to overuse the gold execpt for outstanding individuals.

I'm still working out where the green and grey go exactly. I'm trying to figure out if it's going to be green or grey as the main colour, or if I'm going to try a quartered scheme. Honestly, the quartered scheme is probably far too much work for a "for fun" army, but I've got a couple of pretty hated models I can use for test patterns. I've got the green main variation already attepted (quick and badly), just for illustrative purposes. I'll do the grey main variant tonight, and if I've time, I'll try the quartered (maybe also halved) style as well. That'll give me a good idea of what I'm looking at. Maybe will shoot them over to the boyz for their vote.

Since I own everything I need for the marines, I feel absolutely no need to buy stuff for them. That's good, because it means I don't have to concern myself with getting them little fiddly bits of whatever, or purchasing new models or minis or anything. I can paint them up as slowly as I like, and even take the time to do them one at a time. I suppose I should be focused on my Slaaneshi guys, but I'm not worried about getting them done quickly either. They'll get done when they get done.

Which reminds me, there's been no progress on them for a while now. I do need to get back to that one model's arm and get it finished. Then he can join the Lieut on the shelf. He's currently vastly outnumbered against the Dark Eldar. The two of them should be able to hold them off though. I'll see if I can get him done this week.

Posted 1:01 PM by Tim
About a year or two back, before the release of the Witchhunters Codex, I'd heard a rumour about Space Marines being allowed as allies for a Sisters of Battle force. At the time, a number of the people I played with were heavily trading their marines around. A lot of older models, and a lot of out of date items.

Since I was hoping to build up a good sized SoB force, I took advantage of the marines I saw passing by and snagged a fair number of them for reasonable prices. Now, these had changed hands a few times already, and more often than not, they'd gotten a paint job at each stop - or part of a paintjob. So, they were quite a crazy mix of chapters.

The Codex came out, and the SM were included, but not in the way I'd hoped, so I dropped the idea of them as an allied force, and pushed them to the back burner. A little later, I decided to make them a regular marine force. I went with the idea of just making them all one chapter. I decided on Crimson Fists, based almost entirely on the fact that the majority of them were already in those colours. Repainting happened to almost all of the marines, but the vehicles were left as they were.

I didn't get very far with them before giving up on them.

The force shrunk over time as certain models were traded away for other models, and I ended up with a force of just over 1200 points of mostly unwanted models. Old, bad and covered in enough paint to make them into pretty much big blobs of paint.

I thought I'd sell the whole lot of them, so I packed them up, and sent them off to be disposed. I was hoping to convert them into some slaaneshi models in the exchange. It didn't happen. I got all the minis back, and I find they've damaged themselves quite a bit. They need a lot of work, but I'm now thinking to do them up. I'm looking at a very simple colour scheme (three, maybe four colours + black and metals).

On to the reason for this post. One of the models I've had for a long time is a badly mistreated land speeder. For whatever reason (probably because I've played Dark Eldar so long), I like Speeders, but most other marine players around here hate them. Too flimsy, too worthless, etc. I've decided that I'm going to recover this model. It's broken in places, and been painted nice and thick. But I think I can do it. I think I can not only clean it up, I think I can make it look pretty good. It'll never be great, but it shouldn't be horrible.

The first step was to see if any of the model could come apart. Surprisingly, the whole model had been assembled with crazy glue, and came apart with a minimum of force. None of the pieces broke during disassembly either, so I'm quite happy about that. Basically, I've got a fully disassembled Speeder, which has been painted really badly. Even the pilots came apart completely. So good for me.

Next, cleaning the paint off. The Speeder was heavily coated in red, over a heavy coat of white, over a reasonable undercoat of black. Now, I could have taken the model and dumped it into a vat of something or other. This would strip the model down to the plastic, but I don't feel like investing quite that much time into the cleaning process. It would probably be worth it, but, I'm a little impatient and a lot lazy. So, it'll have to deal with me doing things the quick way. I've scraped the heaviest deposits of paint off, and it's down to looking only mostly bad.

I suppose it'd be worth the effor to fully strip it, but this isn't going to be a showpiece army anyway, just something playable.

Now, I just need to work out a colour scheme.

Posted 11:32 AM by Tim
No painting happening this week... and I'll be lucky to even touch a brush at all until next week. Maybe I might happen to get a few moments on Saturday.

Posted 10:11 AM by Tim
Painting has been really slow this week. I took the stuff over to the boyz earlier this week, and despite painting for over an hour, I only got an arm, and a shoulderpad done. I'm really rethinking the idea of trying to outfit each of my marines with the actual Slaanesh pad. They're way too much work.

Still, I'm sticking to the idea that each little bit finished is one less bit that needs finishing. So, I've got just that tiny bit less to do now. And, it turned out looking pretty cool... so I'm pretty pleased.

I hope I get a chance to get back to work on these things soon.

Posted 10:22 AM by Tim
Progress on the Slaaneshi force. I took a couple of minis over to the boyz house, and got the body, and an arm of one entirely done, including shoulderpad. I even manged to glue all the bits together. Now, he's just missing an arm. This makes him the furthest along officially.

I've also managed to get some paint onto the other two models, so now they are all at least based in purple. Unless I get these three done this week (unlikely), I doubt there will be any chance of me managing to get the other eight marines and the 6 Daemonettes finished by the end of November. It's a good goal, but I'm just too booked right now.

Posted 2:00 PM by Tim
Work on the Slaaneshi force continues. I've put a bit of a buying moratorium up, but it's a weak one. Basically, I won't spend any money on miniatures until the Marines I have are converted into cash of some sort. Then, as much as possible, I'll use that money to purchase new minis. If I can, I'll be working towards getting more Chaos guys. I've only got until the end of the month to get them all, assemble them, and paint them fully... and it's been slower going than usual.

NaNoWriMo has eaten up a considerable portion of my evenings the last couple days, which limits my paint time to the last thing in the evening. Not the best time for getting quick painting done, but beggars can't be choosers.

I brought a couple of minis over to the boyz last night, in an effort to encourage them to get on with their painting. I managed to do the edging on one marine (after wilfully snapping his arm off to get at the stuff it covered up). And I managed to finish the old champion's new power sword. I'm going to have to seal it tonight to keep me from messing it up between now and assembly time. I suppose I'll have to finish his other arm while I'm at it - not to mention his body and backpack... ok... so I've got his arm done, ok?

I'm a tad disappointed that I'm not farther along with the whole painting of this squad - then again, it's only been a week, and I've only managed to put about two nights work into them, and not even full nights at that. Maybe I'm doing all right after all. Then again, with another 8 men to buy, build and paint, then a set of Daemonettes.... hmm... no, I'm not going to be done in time - short of something miraculous happening. :(

Still, I'm going to press on with it. I want to get them done, and they're the main focus right now (until, and unless I get some additional Necrons). It's going to be much slower going than I like... but if I'm lucky, I'll finish my novel before long and then, I dunno... I'll either start writing something else (without the need to rush and get it done), or I'll just swap in the time for painting.

Posted 10:09 AM by Tim
While waiting for NaNo to get started, I figured I'd at least get things painted. I figured it'd be easiest to finish one guy, rather than trying them in series. After all, there's not much similar between different chaos marines, and my little mob is probably as much different as they are the same.

I didn't manage to finish the marine, but his body is done at least (including his backpack and base). This leaves me with just his arms to do. Since I started with the Sonic Blaster marine, that leaves me with doing this rather complicated and essential weapon. I'll have to take a look at this weapon to figure just which colours should go where.

After doing a chunk of NaNo writing, I was kinda inspired to try something a little more... difficult. I got the greenstuff out, and added a couple extra details on his power weapon. In this case, fire. I haven't really sculpted fire before, so it was an interesting challenge. I'm not sure whether or not it worked out yet. I'll know once I paint it. The question is, do I paint the flames in the same colours as the sword, or do I make them different? I'll mull that question for a while.