Terrain is everything - "Can you tell what it is yet?"

As Shakin' Stevens once said "Merry Christmas everyone", I always wonder if folk in other countries 

get to listen to some of the classic British Christmas tunes like Noddy Holder, Wizzard and Jona Lewie. There's a very British feel to all the shops playing the same old festive favourites and I wonder if that travels internationally. Anyway, I digress.

Here we have the component parts for what may be my most complex piece of terrain yet. It's certainly iconic and will have a lot of detail packed into a small area. I say complex, maybe I mean fiddly, I'm not sure, but the STC to go with it will also be available and as the crafting of this structure will be dependent on the thickness of the cladding card you use, then there will be some bits you will just have to figure out for yourselves. For instance if you use 1mm thick card then you'll need 7mm wide strips of card to cover the cladding on the edges. 1.5mm and you'll need 8mm strips. As I say - fiddly. 

The upshot of this is that not being able to be 100% accurate with the STC means I may get it Mechanicum approved sooner rather than later. I've also got another structure I'm going to be working on that will blow your minds, quite literally and it will be a step by step guide only, no STC because this baby just does go that way. Of course all this terrain craft is coming at the expense of my figure painting but we'll gloss over that fact purely because my creative juices are flowing else where right now and I'm enjoying the ride. Have a good one.

P.S. If you know what it is, leave a comment...

Deathwing Progress 2

So right when I was coming up on the anniversary of the blog and feeling the least motivated to actually do any painting I suddenly had a flurry of activity only for it to blow as I once again reached a 'painters block'. I did all the antique bronze and then applied my verdigris washes to the Deathwing and I think they came out awesome, but they now don't fit the look of the rest of the army, in particular the Tactical squad. Anyway these pics show how the verdigris looks, under natural light and I even attempted some glow effects on the eye lenses.

I'm not entirely convinced with my efforts on the Crux Terminatus. The Ferron Proxima stone effect doesn't look like stone, it's particularly reminiscent of my old Empire army figures, not sure how to tone it down or whether some drybrushing might make it more dusty, therefore more stone-like...

The other issue is battle damage, which I want to do, but it's going to be tough as I don't want to put silver in any scratches. I want perhaps black to show through as the fluff suggests that underneath all the Bonewhite there's black but what's underneath that? Again a decision that is choking any further progress.

And here lies the other side of the equation. The antique brass here is great, I don't want to touch it but it looks odd next to the Deathwing, although the verdigris being greenish does tie in with the tac squad colouring I wouldn't want their brass to have this effect. The same brasses are on the drop pod and dreadnought. Too much thought is stifling this whole project, no wonder I haven't touched it in weeks.

 The sad thing is that aside from the battle damage, targeting lenses, chapter markings and bases I think these are nearly done. There's not a whole lot left to finish the Deathwing off which I know would be a real boost to my motivation. The Tac squad isn't too far behind either. The fact is my priorities are fixed for the next few months but come April I may well be spending a lot more time and effort getting these things done but any little bit I can do between now and then will just make things go smoother.

The art of 40k - Yet more Gary Harrod

OK, look when I started this 'art of 40k' section I hadn't planned on getting stuck on Mr. Harrod, I don't owe him money/represent him/want his children. It's just there seemed very little artwork online and as times gone by I keep stumbling across more and more of his work I've missed/forgotten that I've rediscovered and I need to share before I can move onto the next artist. These pics were rediscovered in my copy of the 40k Compendium.

Oh WOW! How could I forget this beauty, the original Deimos Pattern Rhino and this pic makes a mockery of the current design. Sure the central transport area is disproportionate to the acutal model, but have you ever seen a picture that quite captures the feel of an armored transport vehicle about turn you into spatula fodder?

An original 'Land's Speeder' and it seems there was less use of an anti-gravity plate on the bottom and more a vectored jet to keep it skimming above the ground in Rogue Trader days.

Next we have an original jet bike with an extremely early mark armored Space Marine, check out the pipes going into his 'beaky' helm. Practically AdMech in design and I can't make out the insignia on his shoulder, anyone? Also of note is the rocket homing in on the bike. There's a real sense of activity and motion in this pic, love it. Lastly, some Orks, not much to say but I really like the way the picture breaks out of the frame with the Stormboyz helm poking out the top.

In an attempt to move things on I'll drop a taster of my next favorite 40k artist, a no-prize if you can guess. Not sure how to progress with it though as I've noticed my scanning destroys the subtle pencil work and I think showing these pieces this way won't do them justice, still guess away

New Ferron Proxima

As promised I finally got around to producing a larger print out of my Ferron Proxima Battle mat. Thankfully scaling the image to the new table size of 150 x 90cm [a 5' x 3' table!] which translates to 127% more width and 118% more length didn't degrade the image. However, I did find the output varied from our plotter. Now I think I recall something similar happening first time around but as you can see below I ended up with two versions, one that has significantly more darker detail and thother which is equally vibrant but without all the lowlights. This time around I think we will be suing the high contrast version for gaiming but I did print and laminate both.

Here's another shot so you can see how much detail has suddenly been picked out.

And again, by laying them on top of eath other you can get a decent comparrison, particualarly in the large crack in ground and the shadowy area below the pale triangular shape.

And a nice shot to end on

Land Raider and Rhino History

I was looking at BoLS the other day and the lead story was a new Forgeworld Land Raider Armoured Proteus

It's a beautiful little beast but the accompanying YouTube video was also cool for those of us with a penchant for GW history and some interesting back story on the modelling of these iconic vehicles.

Now without wishing to look like I just cribbed someone else's news, here's a reminder of my particular interest in these fellas:

Which made me realise a massive omission from the blog, my original Land Raider Proteus has never been photographed, nor has the second Deimos Pattern Rhino, so here's a couple of phone shots, I'll photograph them better some other time.

Deimos Pattern Rhino with Dark Angel upgrades and some 'spotlights' on the front made from Space Crusade bits...

New Forgeworld goodies

New from Forgeworld:

CONTEMPTOR PATTERN AUTOCANNON

Awesome for Mortis Dreads but £7.50 each? I know that's the price of a Dreadnought weapon but it's a shame they aren't more affordable. Still, they're better looking than the other standard Dreadnought Autocannons so on balance they're good value

MINOTAURS SHOULDER PADS

MINOTAURS TERMINATOR SHOULDER PADS

And finally...

GRAIA PATTERN RAPIER LASER DESTROYER

The Rapier Laser Destroyer was one of the first 40k models that came into our house, in fact it was not my figure but my brothers, which I painted. I'm pretty sure I have the chassis knocking around in a bitz box somewhere though the tracks and lasers are probably long gone. I'm not entirely convinced by this sculpt. I think if you were going to make the trapezoidal shape less regular which, is the right thing to do given the current anachronistic Imperial design, then although this is the right direction it needed to be a little more exaggerated. As it is it almost makes sense!

Terrain is everything - Can't see the wood for the trees

I mentioned in April my concerns over trees and after a 12 month wait I finally got to nip back to Dobbies, our local garden centre [and craft shop] to pick up a pack of their model Christmas Trees. These are really popular in the USA for 40k. I've seen loads of battle reports that feature these particular festive flora.

That's the set you get, 21 pieces from a company called Lemax for £13 which I think is good value. Clearly there's at least two that are just a bit too big, they're the same size as my 40k outpost that got bigger! but great line of sight blockers for a Trygon!

Of course there's one big issue with these trees, the seasonal kind. Ferron Proxima is not known for it's snow and chlorophyll as a substance does not exist in it's standard green as evidenced by the Ferron Bindweed. So initially I will be undercoating them all in Red Oxide primer and will be then repainting them in shades of yellow.

More to follow...