Whats on my palette?

Bless me readers for I have sinned, it's been over 2 months since my last confession.

Once again I feel like I've been pretty productive, since my last 'Whats on my palette?' I was looking at:

• Space Hulk Brood Lord 
• Trygon
• Rippers 
• Movement trays
• Ferron Fire Firs
• Dark Angels Rhino 
• Dark Angels Predator 
• Land Speeder Dark Shroud

And as you can see four of those were completed [although the Broodlord was not complete at time of writing], and painted from scratch [one was even built from scratch!]. The Predator too is almost done and the Fire Firs, Land Speeder and Rhino had some progress so I feel pretty good. Except for the 'post Christmas malaise' which I avoided until the end of January... Actually it's not malaise it's fatigue mixed with malaise. As I write this [22nd Jan] I've had a few 'nights off' to try and recharge a little bit, then...

That night and 23rd Jan I cracked on with Broodlord and completed it making me feel a whole lot better. Then the reality hit again and the Predator damage, coupled with no desire to tackle my Dark Shroud or any other item has brought me to a standstill again. It's far from ideal but I've a lot on my plate at the moment outside of the hobby, but also in preparation for GT3, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it [in fact I went to bed just after 11 last night!].

Re-prioritising 'real life' is in part because I realised I actually have a lot of things already painted - too much in fact, so that they're just done and put in boxes. I definitely need to rationalise what I have and where I'm going with things. Not necessarily sellign things, just start thinking about rearranging the shed so I can store my finished items in such a way that makes them also accessible.

But I'm actually quite pleased with progress so far this season and in a week or two I'll be back to normal. One other thing I'll be working on is this Samurai from 1984 that I'm attempting to finish for the 'Eavier Metal Facebook group's 20 Year Challenge. The standard is always insane so I've no aspirations aside from taking part, it's just I've never tried before and felt I was missing out.

Sadly is also means I'm unlikely to throw my hat in with Squaduary. I've a Tactical squad that's 80% built but there is no way I can build the rest and paint them in one month with everything else going on. But give it a go if you're able.

So, I've a couple of further updates and perhaps I'll have kicked back into gear but right now I've those five things to think about and attempt when I get the motivation.

'nids part 242 - Re-magnetising my Crushing Claw Tervigon

My Crushing Claw Tervigon has been a staple of my army since 2011 but when I was painting it as a sub-assembly I asked myself even then should I magnetise it? But I was still quite green with my hobby skills and I was much more wary about screwing up the basecoats and wash I'd achieved so far than today, where I can drill this mother and worry about fixing the altogether finished paint job afterwards.

Now I've loved the Crushing Claws since the days of Biomancy Warp Speed. The ability to do a potential 9 Smash attacks [and it did on numerous occasions]. Granted this lumbering beast, moving with insane speed and smashing apart things with brutal ease, doesn't quite add up but that's what prompted me gluing them in place and that's what I was worrying about now that I had to remove the Claws from their sockets. I was imaging I'd have to drill some 0.5mm pilot holes, join them up and then slip a small screw driver into the gap and hopefully pop it off. But thankfully I didn't need to.

The thing with poly glue is it comes as liquid poly and poly cement. Both work by softening the plastic and the two pieces melt and bond together. But from my experience poly cement, although great for gap filling doesn't melt the two parts quite as much as liquid poly and often acts as a sandwich filling between them rather stick them together. And so all that was required was to jimmy the screwdriver in without the pilot holes and they did indeed pop off without any damage to the model!

On to the drilling. Once again 6mm holes to fit my Magnetix magnets.

I've still got a load in my garage that need to be separated from their plastic but I've a few knocking around from my last scavenge.

Glued in place, using my current magnetised Scything Talons from my other Tervigon to ensure polarity it consistent and therefore I can swap the weapons to either model [hopefully].

One reason for doing this is if I want to take a Rupture Cannon for a Tyrannofex. Currently the Mawloc head conversion on my 'Great Maw' Tervigon makes magnetising the Rupture Cannon a little difficult. I mean the gun is fine, it's just the feeder arm. Obviously I had the same issue with the Acid Spray but fixed it by extending the feeder tubes. I can try the same here but it's clear it'll be easier to achieve on this Tervigon head than the Mawloc/Tfex conversion.

Claws magnetised and as usual versatility means I do end up sacrificing the pose a little. Unfortunately I put the magnets into the claws almost perpendicular to the arms so the only poses I can make are tight into the body raised.

And tight into the body lowered. I'll never get the wide mid position I'd originally glued but I actually don't mind these poses so much.

This pose looks actually quite cool because it comes across as a quadroped with forearms, not a hexaped [is that the correct term?]. 

And here it is with the Scything Talons in place. Interestingly this pic was taken the following night, no extra lighting just the fluorescent tubes in the man cave and yet the pictures still look great, in part due to the Veliva filter.

I thought I'd also try putting the Acid Spray on it but it appears the Great Maw Tervigon must have had it's magnets standing proud of its torso, not recessed like this one. 

As such you can see there is a significant gap on one side.

Regardless these pictures remind me how much I love this model. Granted painting this one originally was a nightmare and it would have been nicer if it was easier to re-pose it but it it just so big and brutal looking. This model makes me like the Tyranid faction more than any other model in the Tyranid line, I just find it really impressive.

'nids part 241 - Trygon - Moar shots

Oh man! I mean look at it. It's far from a perfect picture, In fact the positioning of the model make it actually very difficult to work out what's going on but the colours are fabulous.

Composition wise I think this is much better but sadly less dynamic and could do with a bit more of the Vermilion than the orange in the background. But I bet it makes an swesome desktop wallpaper... yes it does!

And some full body shots. Again thanks to the dynamic pose it's difficult to find the golden angle for this, although this isn't too bad.

There we go my Trygon is complete, might be worth looking at what's on my Palette soon...

'nids part 240 - Trygon - TO DONE!

The Trygon is complete, although I hadn't glued his head on at this stage [yeah I don't know why either?].

Annoyingly when I did glue it in place I still got the torso out of whack, which meant the head still isn't straight and more importantly couldn't position it completely in the neck socket for a perfect join.

Instead it's just the pin, a whole load of Super Glue Gel and two super glue joins to where the head crest touches the Carapace

Close-up of the base, you can see the claw highlights and the additional spot third highlight on the Chitin just to define some of the more important ridges.

Another little bit of debris, Deathwatch or Ravenwing? You decide which was the unfortunate rider.

And the other side of the base where the BBQ chips were used to great effect to represent the way the Trygon thrashes along the surface to move about.

Obviously the biggest changes since my last update are the extra highlight on the Chitin, the black talons and claws highlighted and seeing the toxin/plasma effect in context with the rest of the model.

I had originally planned to do a video of the green being applied but foolishly shook my Dark Green Valejo paint just before I began, which given how the process specifically requires the paint to remain un-mixed rendered the whole process redundant.

Still it came out OK in the end I think. Obviously it's bold choice to retain the the Trygon plasma as green like it's Toxin but I didn't want to introduce another spot colour as the green on the red/bone/blue/turquoise is enough. Recently my Carnifex had blue bio-plasma head so I could try a new style but the green came out so well.

I could have highlighted the green more at the front, like a Doppler effect going down the containment spine but opted for an edge, but still front weighted with how much is highlighted towards the tip of the spine.

Finished pics on the white background, y'know in case I can ever be bothered to send these to White Dwarf. Ha, ha.

The irony is I'd be sending them through my gmail address but I really only access that by phone which means I can;t be bothered to type anything up :)

Maybe one day I'll pull my finger out but it'll be while I'm in the shed, which is time away from painting and it's bad enough finding time to take these pictures than then writing about them too [he says, writing about these pictures!].

Moar pics tomorrow, of the phone variety and there are some absolute doozies!

In the mean time Great Big Gamboge Stamp of Approval!

'nids part 239 - Rippers - Moar pics

Moar pics of the Rippers, once again Camera 360 making these far more vibrant so they look good enough to eat. Sometimes I wonder if these additional pics add anything but in this case I think they do, and wait until you see the Trygon pics, these one I think equals my Dark Talon for awesomeness. Anyway, I'll leave you to enjoy without any further interruption.