Dawn of War - Soulstorm

You may recall my recent obsession with Dawn of War. Dark Crusade has been filling my evenings and been both pleasurable and more recently a pain. What can I say I think the only race I enjoy fighting are Necrons because they move so slow you've plenty of time to build your force to bring the might of the Imperium down on them.

Anyway I've been keeping an eye out Dawn of War - Soulstorm and there have been a number of half decent offers but the other weekend I had to nip into my local town to drop off some bits at the charity shop. There's loads of charity shops where I live, they get special business rates, so I believe, so there are around a dozen but mostly I drop my stuff of at Barnardo's. Not sure why I choose that one, but I have a Gift Aid card filled out so it's better to know they're getting a few extra quid than going to another charity shop where I have to fill in the forms again. Whilst I was there I noticed a copy of Artemis Fowl that I thought to pick up for my son but when I turned back some bozo was hogging the book section so I decided to just get on with my shopping.

I nipped to a local hardware store to pick up a 1mm drill bit to drill out some bolter barrels. I'd got a 2mm one recently because I like the idea bolter shells are massive but one of my AoBR bolter barrels had split so I decided to invest in a smaller bit. What surprised me is that you don't really need a pin vice to do this sort of work in plastic. In fact I'd say it would be far clumsier to do so with one.

Next stop was to the local art shop. I wanted to pick up some finer brushes for line highlights but on the way I passed Age UK a charity shop I'd be hard pressed to ever say I've entered but as I'd been blocked by one guy already I thought I'd just have a look what they had to offer. So it was that me and the littlest nipper perused the shelves and typically there was also a collection of Playstation 2 and PC games and what's this Warhammer 40,000 game? Well it couldn't possibly be Soulstorm the sole remaining title I need to complete the set... surprise, surprise indeed it is! And what extortionate price might it be? £2.50 you say, well it is for charity. So I did my bit for the old folks maybe they get a blanket, or Horlicks or some't and I've got my game.

Short story long, but on a side note I also dropped the Tyranid Prime and his head snapped off! Hopefully my patch job should save him but I may end up having to pin it with a heat weld, time will tell.

The art of 40k - Gary Harrod

As a child obsessed with Games Workshop there was certainly one aspect that fired the imagination above others and that was the imagery. I'm a visual person, I'm reasonably adept when it comes to all those things 'arty'. I was one of those kids at school who 'can draw' and have since gone on to be creative in my working life, or would do if the Powers That Be would let me, but that's verging on politics.

I have a very strong sense of aesthetic and certain artists in the GW fold became my Favourites. I wasn't a big fan of comics at the time because the cheap colour half-tone patterns of that age never appealed to me and I never really got into 2000AD. However, the imagery in White Dwarf and the Rulebooks was more than enough to sate my visual augmetics. In particular Adeptus Titanicus conjured up images of a scale I don't think have been witnessed since. It managed to capture all the gritty weirdness that John Blanche could throw at the 40k-verse but also the smooth detail of Kevin Walker all ticked off by Aly Morrison's tiny little battelscapes that had so much detail - from the smallest Guardsman to the tallest titan, awesome.

So I'm going to share some of my favourite artists and some of my favourite images along the way, I hope you don't mind, it's all grist for the mill and inspirational too. First up, my all time favourite, Gary Harrod. Trying to find any more than the two images present is nigh on impossible. I'm pretty sure I have an image somewhere of Horus/another Chaos Marine/maybe even some marine from the Blood Angels/Drinkers chapter raising a chalice from a font made of skulls that may have been his work but these two will have to suffice. How I grew to love this guys work above all others based on so little printed output is beyond me but his name was always on the tip of my tongue if someone would have asked me who my number one was [nobody did].

I always envisaged this picture as Horus himself, well it was on the AT page titled Horus Heresy so it had to be, right? Anyway I don't need anymore evidence of the fact than that his eyes are glowing so he's definitely a bad'un. I love the levels of contrast, the stark highlights versus the deepest shadows, awesome.

One of the really cool things about Adeptus Titanics was that the original prototype models for the Warlord Titans were used both in the phtographs and the artwork. there was something really cool about the chunkiness of the amour, weapons and heads. Something the plastic end-result never quite captured. I still prefer them to the new 'boxy' style of Warlord Titan but it was those original ones that fired the imagination. A few years ago I came across a website where the owner had a number of these beasts but I can't find the link so they got out into the wild.

The picture itself does very little and yet so much. I can't quite explain why I like it above all else, the style of the head the overabundance of missile firepower, it just speaks to me on a primal level.

Meanwhile, from my googling it turns out Mr Harrod went on to work for a number of computer games magazines and companies and now runs an independent design studio for print and digital media. So if he needs an occassional long-distance weekend freelance designer, I have capacity ;) Check out his website though.

Anyway I'll have a look for some of my other favourites and once they're wound up maybe look at some of my bestest pictures too, thanks for the indulgence.

Tactical squad update

I may be about to commit an unforgivable faux pas or not. Have I shown these already? For the life of me I can't tell but I can't seem to find them in my searches and I have another update to follow so thought I'd better just guarantee they were out there to prove I have made some advances. So the Tac squad had a basecoat of Orkhide Shade. I can't quite recall if this was at that point or after I'd done a Dark Angel Green drybrush. Now I say drybrush but the way I put it on it was more like a 'drybuff'! Everywhere it went seemed to get 'polished' so I haven't ended up with the usual dusty look most drybrushing results in.

Following on from this, though I have no pictures, I did a Badab Black wash and it removed any shiny quality and really started to generate that 'dark' in the Dark Angels. Not that I'll probably ever use this Space marine Captain but he's going to get painted up in the process.

The big deal, once I've resolved the DAGreen will be all the other bits . Had wanted a white edge round the the shoulder pads, leading up to the Tac Squad Arrow, but that isn't 'Chapter Approved' and may well end up being less dark than I wish. I'm thinking of going aged gold on the chest Aquila, sommething that can be toned down. I'm looking for whatever aged metals I can get, no shiny polished metal for these guys.

I also have to decide on which company. However as I have some of the Information from Imperial Armour 2 which details the Siege of Vraks I can choose from the 1st and 2nd [obviously] but also the 3rd, 5th, 6th, 8th and 9th companies. However, they do feature combat squad Boreas, which is 10 men so why not appropriate these guys and my Deathwing can also be Squad Arbalan, so I kind of know who each of these Marines is. Of course one of the real reasons for doing this is the Vraks Devastation force also included 12 Tarantual Sentry guns, so it's always a reason for keeping them included in my army.

Another shot of the Captain, subtly different but still worthy of showing nontheless.

Space Marine [the computer game] musical score

I may have mentioned in the past my favourite band - Pitchshifter you may or may not have heard of them but I've been a fan since the early 90's and have grown to love their industrial breakbeat electronica, so much so both my kids have middle names of Clayden after the two brothers who formed the band. No need to call social services the wife was fine with it too. Anyway back in 2002 a friend of the band, Sam Hayles took over designing their album covers [a job I'd love to have but he does it better ;) ] his first one Psi
is here:

But he also did their best album a live CD and remix compilation called Bootlegged Distorted Remixed and Uploaded

You can find more of his work, including the awesome playing card designs and other band album covers on his website www.doseprod.com Anyway, what's this got to do with the price of Termagants I hear you ask. Well I've been friends with him on Facebook for a while and my interest was piqued when I saw this status update:

Finishing editing up a video to be put on Youtube with several images of upcoming game Space Marine with musical score by Sonic Mayhem ! Awesome music.

And so I give you the 14 min compilation of the musical score:

I also found out that ex Pitchshifter guitarist and all round good-guy Matt Grundy also designed some tie-in components for the game. I guess I'm the only designer out there not asked to contribute :(

More weekend progress - 'nids part 24 - DiY Mycetic Spore pt2.

It's been quite a while since I made any effort on my son's Mycetic Spore. I've still got two Plasma Hatchers which I think are awesome and all those haters off them need to get a grip. A few quid for a perfectly acceptable model of the correct scale for a unit type not currently made by GW. Seriously, everyone should be using them. But I'd already started with my idea below and I made a bit of progress over the weekend on the base.

The base was just a piece of hardboard cut to the same shape as the Trygon base. I used layers of the black styrene foam used in Pizza trays [FYI: that stuff is cool for carving and doesn't melt as much under spraying]. I carved it to the desired shape as per my sketch. I then got some DAS air drying clay and sculpted the crater. It struggles to 'stick' to the underlying structure [which I'd read about on http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/] but a bit of pressure and some water to smooth everything over helps. I used a tiny pine cone to roll some texture into the clay, but will probably add sand to it as well. I sculpted some gouges with a coffee stirrer. It could be better but as it's another job that's been long in procrastination the limited progress is greater than the actual sum of it's parts.

Here's a reminder the pot-pourri 'thing' I'm using. I've cut some bits of card to use as the Chitinous parts. I may not go the tiny plates route and go with four or five large plates. Card base with either DAS clay or Milliput to sculpt the correct shape - that's the next sticking point. The base needs a hole drilled into it and the Spore will be screwed onto it to stay solid.

A weekend of progress [with a 'Terrain is everything' thrown in for free]

Following on from my feeling of lethargy on Wednesday I feel like I've started to break free from that 'swamp'. Admittedly the progress isn't massive, under close scrutiny, but somehow I feel like I'm getting somewhere. As I commented in that thread I actually went on to listen to Helion Rain and did the 50:50 Bonewhite/white highlight on the Terminators. Drilled out the storm bolters and added Mechrite red to all the bits that needed it. I haven't yet taken pictures, not sure if the level of highlights will even show up, which doesn't sound like progress but I assure you it is.

Anyway, on Friday night the wife had another night shift so I decided to crack on with a number of other things. I'd prepped a new 'man-made hill' and decided you all needed to share in it's inception. This hill is obviously a lot simpler than the previous Vulcan Plateau - a simple square, but the final STC will in fact have extra bits that will allow you to construct your hill in a number of patterns. Sharp eyed amongst you will notice that the cladding pieces on the side don't go as close to the corners as usual. This is so you can add corner bulkheads similar to those used on the 40k Outpost that got bigger. Alternatively you can leave them off.

A third option will involve steps. As it is, these are hills and unless you run the rules that hills are difficult terrain there shouldn't be any reason to sculpt steps onto them, to allow figures to get topside. I don't make them in my foam hills so there's really no need, but with these they sometimes make sense. This particular version will just have one set for reasons that will become clear but equally you could do a set of steps on each side which I think would look quite cool. Of course you could mix and match any of these options for a multitude of hill types but the three options described seems like a nice starting point.

And obviously the modular plug aspect allows you to add in the Vent Tower components. Don't worry I have realised I will have to expand the number of models featuring the modular socket. I have one immediate plan to 'fill that slot'. It's a new addition to my 'to do list' that will remain a secret for the time being but I will be prepping some CD bases with modular sockets so the items can be used on the current man made hills or just as normal terrain.

Here's why I needed the stairs, the Vent Tower just wouldn't have sat right with no immediate access to lead you in to those big old doors. So I've managed to add even more height to the tower which is fun, G.O.D. help anyone with a 12" range, you can shoot anyone assaulting the base, that's it. It's a total real-estate thief but it's looking awesome.

More progress to follow...

Epic Adeptus Titanicus part 10. - War Griffons Insignia part 2

Way back in December of last year I brought this scan from Codex Titanicus of the War Griffons Insignia

Well in rooting around I've managed to source two more from the set.

Now I'm pretty sure there would have been a Warlord as well but the photobucket collection had two missing links, presumably the Warhound and the Warlord pages. As I'm currently hitting the top-spots in Google image searches I thought I'd collect them here but you can see the originals here:

• http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3774/wargriffons1az9.jpg
• http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/9154/wargriffon2bv9.jpg
• http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/988/wargriffon3xa7.jpg
• http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/2936/wargriffon4dq7.jpg