Monday, October 25, 2010

A week at a glance

This last week took up all of my painting and sculpting time, as it was finals week for university classes I'm taking. I did get a little work done, but overall nothing worth taking pics of. Ran into some issues with my shoulder pad molds, and I'll have to make new molds. My RTV is having 'issues', but I know how to fix the problem with air pockets. Soon I'll be placing an order for some 30 minute or 1 hour cure time resin, still researching to see which will work out best for me.

Unfortunately, due to my class schedule for the next 8 weeks, I won't be playing in any tournaments. But I will be taking at least one night a week to get to the FLGS and get a few battles in. Finalizing my killzone team, and looking into getting a mini-league going for it at the LGS.

Since I don't have pics of any new work, I bring you...

Friday, October 15, 2010

Knight of Bal Timorea Finished (nearly) & other projects

With a day off today, and looking like tomorrow I got out the paints, green stuff, and sculpting tools. Getting down to work finishing up the main points of my Knight of Bal Timorea, as well as sculpting several Space Marine shoulderpads.

Having decided on the final colors for the knight, I got to work. Starting with the darkest shades on the armor, and the medium tones on the clothing. I then worked in lighter shades on the points of highlight until reaching a not quite silver, giving his armor an older and less polished look. I then shaded then highlighted through the clothing of the knight. His helmet got a wooden upper and yellow band and streamers to match the horses coverings.


Work on the base will begin tomorrow, but that should be the very easiest work for this knight. A mixture of sands and tiny stones will be used, and depending on how that looks a light amount of green flock possibly. I debated using milliput to sculpt something for the base, but decided against it as I couldn't guarantee it would match up with the other knights.

Earlier this morning (Thursday) I spent some time sculpting a few shoulder pads. One for the Iron Snakes (which oddly enough was harder to do), and one for my Star Drakes (which could also be used for Salamanders). I also did a right shoulderpad with a circular icon plate, for use in individual heraldry, awards, etc for a marine. Overall the work turned out well, the Star Drake pad is quite good, and not flush to the pad, having raised areas giving a 3D effect.



Next on my list of projects will be work on my Thunderwolf Cavalry 'counts as' unit. It is marines riding cold ones, to fit the Star Drakes dino/dragon theme. I'm considering having some of the marines standing next to, mounting, and riding the cold ones. To give the unit and its individual figs their own character.

I will also be working on a few more shoulder pads tomorrow, Brazen Claws being first on the list (still have to grab the chapter symbol to go from). And I'm finishing up sketches for some boltgun variants to sculpt up, a bullpup design, a 'rifle' design, and one with dual drum magazines. I'll be putting up pics of my first batch of custom bases, which I will be selling soon, later today after getting some other work finished.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Killzone Blitz

Having looked through the Killzone rules BigJim put together, I've realized it would be great to roll into my Deathwatch Killteam project. A small team tasked with inacting the will of the Ordo Xenos, and defending the Emperium from its many enemies. Now that I have a little more of a 'background' for my project with this idea, I expect it will move a little more smoothly.

The only trouble I see is the question of if anyone even wants to play Killzone in the LGSs. Most of the time I see 1500-2000 point battles going on. Tournaments monthly. Sometimes 1250 point battles and tournaments. But with Adepticon coming, having a good handle on the ins and outs of Killzone would be a good thing. One of the LGS helps build the tables and terrain for Adepticon, so I would hope they want to help promote this great take on 40k (a good number go to Adepticon every year, so you'd think they'd want to support other parts than just the main tourney).

I'm still looking for suggestions for the 10th chapter for my Deathwatch Killteam, feel free to give ideas.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Aaaargh! (and more not Aaaargh!)

The one thing I didn't want to have happen while I waited for my business start up cash to arrive... my primary PC has died due to a heat sink pump failure.... Which means I have to go buy my 4th liquid cooler for my PC in the last 2 years. From personal experience, I will have to say, do NOT buy the Domino liquid cooler systems for any PC. I've had nothing but trouble with them from the beginning. I'd go to a heat pipe setup, if I hadn't lost one piece from my motherboard required to mount more traditional heat sinks. Needless to say, that one part is not one that can be purchased from the mobo manufacturer. As it stands, I think when the money shows up I'll be yanking this motherboard and getting a newer ASUS M4 series mobo, and a heat pipe cpu cooler system.

In other news, the movie Killers is hilarious, and well worth renting. Watched it tonight, and enjoyed the heck out of it. I'll be watching Diary of a Wimpy Kid tomorrow with the family, actually looking forward to that.

Deathwatch update. I've gotten down to resin casting more shoulderpads for them, looking at doing a 10 man squad. So far I have pads for 5 finished, and the sculpting for the rest is ongoing. I plan to do 10 different chapters for this kill team. The chapters I will be doing are Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Black Templars, Ultramarines, Storm Wardens (Anyone else notice their emblem is almost exactly the same as the Nerf N-Strike logo?), Iron Snakes, Star Drakes (my homebrew chapter), and 2 other chapters I'm still debating which. Suggestions would be helpful.

My Knight of Bal Timorea is coming along nicely. I plan to get finished with the horse by this evening, and get the base coats down on the knight. I'm still trying to work out what to put on the black and white field for the coat d'arms. Sticking with the 'poor knight' concept I've also distressed his shield, armor, and over clothing. His lance will be wooden with metal pieces, and not a more typical take on it (as show in the Brettonia army book). I'm actually thinking of using the grail as part of his coat d'arms, making him a grail knight. This actually would fit with the fluff, as many grail knights give up titles, lands, etc. to take on the duty of defending a place sacred to the Lady of the Lake.

I put forth the challenge to the followers of this blog, again. Check last months posts in the archive for the Deathwatch challenge. It's not a tough challenge overall, and the minis can be used for the Deathwatch RPG, or in a marine army (possibly as Sternguard, etc.).

Until later!

Friday, October 8, 2010

My Knight of Bal Timorea (Part 1).

Having taken up the challenge of making a Knight of Bal Timorea, I've gotten to work. Firstly I decided on a main color scheme, yellows being the predominant binding color in the scheme. I've decided on the field for the heraldry, a split black and white field, but I'm still working on the rest. The knight will be riding on a grey/white horse. Yellow caparison, and main color of the cloth, is blended to all the other colors with a small amount of yellow ink in every color used in this figure.

As these initial pics show (my light box is being rebuilt so outside I went for lighting), the overall look is good. I've so far done a blended layering of the yellow, as well as for a good portion of the horses coat. Leather is going to be a 4 stage blending/highlighting, as is the armor.







The next steps will be the blending and shading work on the leather, followed by the armor. I will then work on the tail and horses mouth and eyes. Then I will begin work on the knight himself. This pic makes it a bit hard to notice, but the cloth is distressed, and looks like it has been in several battles. I've also included 'repairs' using 'leather' ties to it. As this knight isn't very wealthy, and thus has to do some of his own repair work.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Things that make you go *groan*

Well, its been an interesting week. Visited family out of town over the weekend, caught bronchitis... basically little work done this week on any projects. Though there was some progress on my TWC counts as Cold One riding marines, as well as having gotten started on my Knight of Bal Timorea. I'd post up pics, but my camera has up and disappeared after the trip, so we're trying to find that (can't loose a $200 camera and not freak out a bit).

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Updates

I've started work on my saurus rider counts as 'TWC', as well as gathered a large amount of magnets for my repurposing project. Also in the works are resin cast bases. I'll be posting up some pics of my progress over the next few days, as well as a short tutorial on mold creation, use, and resin casting in general. Just waiting on some bits to get further into my Deathwatch project, and I'm also working on sculpting some shoulder pads for a few chapters (Iron Snakes, Crimson/Imperial Fist, BT, etc.) as well as custom shoulderpads for my home brew chapter (which I've named the Star Drakes).

And today I bring you...

Join the toy soldier side...