Wigan Comic Con Heresy

The Family and I went to Wigan Comic Con the other weekend, we'd been to the Preston one ealier in the year and although there were some sulky tantrums from the kids we actually had a good time. We'd tried to attend the Blackpool one, which turned into a farce getting tickets and we didn;t get in, but by all accounts it was overcrowded and badly organised anyway so Wigan was our next event and although it's not the most auspicious of guests there was a Dr Who going to be there - Colin Baker to add to my Sylvester McCoy [who was at Preston]. Sadly he got stuck in traffic so I missed him :(

Anyway, as we walked in I was confronted by this heresy

And later on

Great costumes, the Chaos Marine was exceedingly tall too.

 

Afterwards I found out the Blood Raven actually won best cos-play costume which was pretty cool.

Anyway, thought I'd share.

Imperial Knight - in manufactorum pt 3

The fires of the Ferron forges glow hot as I return to the Knight that started it all. The original plan was to build this and the Cerastus at the same time, reach certain milestones together and end up with two knights at the end. However, I had quite a number of other projects on the go at the same time so when I began to focus my efforts the Paladin fell by the wayside. Annoyingly the only real reason it was abandoned was the basing of the model and potentially repositioning the legs. I wanted something a little different but I didn’t think I was prepared to cut the legs up just yet. But when I revisited it, having completed the Cerastus, the planets aligned for me to overcome that stumbling block. The solution was just one cut, albeit quite an awkward one - I had to remove the hip joint pipes. This would have been so much easier if I’d done it before joining the two parts together but y’know hindsight. Anyway, I managed it and still have all my fingers and eyes.

With the pipework removed I can now rotate it around the groin. It locks into the leg with a hexagonal plug and socket, obviously those could have been cut off but I’m already reducing the structural integrity by slicing the joint off.

This way I could rotate the joint so although the leg is still in a similar position as before because the pipework is not pointing downwards and more forwards it'll at least gives the impression it’s advancing. If I point the body the other way it'd be more apparent I think, but it's removable anyway so that's not a problem.

I had another spare Termagant, again missing a head so a bit of judicious pruning, some spare bits of Genestealer node tentacles and lashing of poly cement and I managed to squish the two under it’s foot. My kit-bashing is always a bit slap-dash, I could probably do a better job but I’m all for using just glue and spare bits of sprue to fill in gaps and for the most part I get away with it.

I’m going to struggle a bit with putting the basing material on but I’d done a fair bit that night, it’d had got to midnight and then I had a second wind and think I went on for another hour or more because I knew that if I cracked this there was only magnetising the weaponry that could slow me down. So I glued everything together - Superglued the other foot to the slate, which had been hot glued to the base. I'm a little anxious there are no screws fixing it but there isn't quite the surface to drill into and I think a plastic weld is pretty strong and the model is much lighter than the Cerastus so will be under less stress.

I think this picture shows best how the rotation of the hip joint can be subtley effective. to be honest I only realised above that although it was rotated the leg was essentially in the same postion. It is tilted a bit because of the gaunts underfoot and the fact the joint was separated it made it easier to position, it only needed the torso to be in place to add a bit of weight to ensure the joint and waist lined up correctly.

The only thing that annoyed me was I just realised I'd planned to try out the Paladin Torso on the Cerastus and vice versa, just to see what they looked like but forgot all about it and now it's too late. I have had them stood together and there is still a small part of me that regrets that the braced pose of the Cerastus loses a lot of height that differentiates it from the Paladin. It's still bigger it's just not as big, not to worry the dynamism of the pose more than makes up for it. Anyway, the Paladin needs basing yet and then I need to follow Alex's magnetising a Knight tutorial so I'm not beset by further hurdles to overcome.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |

What's on my palette?

Bless me readers for I have sinned, it's been just a couple of months since my last confession. The Knight Lancer is complete but where do I go from here?

 

Obviously I have my To Do List to mine for ideas but I also have my most recent project detours, some of which align with my list but were a bit leftfield in their commencement.

So I’ve basically fished out a load of things I want to work on, I want to feel that buzz of focus that I’ve just had on the Lancer [yes that is part of the addiction] but I also want to feel like I’ve moved some of these gestating [or even hibernating] project on so I can flit between them. I’m also aware that some things are quick wins and I could really achieve a lot just by applying a modicum of effort and that would finish them off . Quick wins are something to relish but they've generally reached that point of inertia for often truly unfathomable reasons that cannot easily be overcome.

Currently these include - a number of magnetised nid arms and heads, alongside my Azrael and Dark Angel Commander, and the Tactical squad; all things I could complete over a two week period and remove three items off my To Do List if I made the effort. Not to mention the Bastion which has been mothballed for more understandable reasons but again is close to completion and would tick another box...

 

I did play a game with the Dark Angels last night and was saddened that the Tactical squad was still incomplete, that might be the incentive to move them up the queue despite them not being my muse...

But the items that have been pulled out of storage are:
•    6 Ravenwing Bikers - bold as I’ve not even painted one yet
•    Nephilim Jetfighter - it needs magnetising at the very least
•    Paladin Knight – magnetising, basing and undercoat

These are the things I want to do but the reasons they’ve stalled could well be the reasons why I throw my efforts behind the other stuff listed above or even crack out the Tyranid VSG! So I’m just short of feeling overwhelmed by the workload which isn’t good so if needs be, things will have to go back in a box just so I don’t have to stare at them and I also need to get some good nights sleep as I’m feeling a little frayed with all the post-midnight sessions and 5:20am starts.

Imperial Knight - Cerastus in manufactorum pt 18 - TO DONE!

The 24th of July was the first proper post I ever did on the Cerastus, five months late and this baby is complete. It's one of the benefits of having a blog in that you can look back at those WiPs and remind yourself of the effort put in to reach this stage.

It's certainly worth projecting that feeling forwards on your next project, reminding yourself that in two or three months whatever enterprise it may be will complete and shiny alongside this effort. Of course that's me I know a few people who can crack these sorts of things out in a week or so but it's great to have one of those big project feelings, like I got with my Tyranid fortifications.

Just in case you're wondering I don't ever envisage going much bigger than a Knight, I'm not one of these Warlord fans, although I do like the Chaos Reaver and Warhounds but I think I'd rather have these guys. You can put a marin nect to them and they look suitably impressive and don't take up the whole of my shed.

Anyway, there's not a huge amount to say about this that hasn't already been said, there are still some decisions I could make regarding weathering powders, extra purity seals and banners but I want to progress some other projects first.

And as an exercise in decals, well although I think I could have achieved something similar, perhaps been more comfortable doing so I also think the need to damage the pristine decals was an easier decision to make because they were perfect - so I got another experience in the process a twofer.

I think this manages to capture the dynamic pose pretty well.

The eyes work too.

You can just see the scratched chest pieces and hardly any of that pipe work underneath, but I know it's there!

The OSL worked really well here, I managed to find another darker orange in my stash of paints to help add some more tones.

The view from the back, very metallic, similar to my Dreadnought in that the front is liveried up but the back view is all metal.

Close ups on the plasma reactors, more win.

And views of the feet and how the shin guards look when in place.

Couldn;t really get the lighting right in these, too much orange reflections.

Yep, that's not working ;)

Nevermind, you've seen it before.

He really has been in the wars, I should probably have scruffed the brass in places too.

The back vent wasn't the greatest, I think Ishould have done it bronze too, the glow effect doesn't really work on top of a similar colour but I think I salvaged it, just.

I'm really happy with the centre of the shield. I add the gloss varnish as it helps accentuate the glow effect. When you move around light catches on it so you can never quite tell if it's the painted reflection or the actual reflection.

Not sure it's how anyone else does lighting, or if it's 'accurate' but I think it's an interesting effect.

I was pleased with the end-result for the lance, although I have just looked at some of the WiP pics and I do  wish I'd been able to capture both the glow effect and the patina underneath but it was a bit of a salvage job after it went south a touch.

And here we go the Big Green Stamp of Approval

 

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |

splelings

I'd just liek to... OK case in point before I've even begun to explain this post. Can I please apologise for the quality of blog post spellings recently. I know I don’t have to apologise but I do try and take a lot of care to get things right but I’m seeing and increase in errors and it annoys the hell out of me. In my defence [and I’m sure you’ll all disagree I need one] it’s not the spelling that is at fault, it’s my typing skills that have begun to atrophy, not sure why.

I’ve definitely noticed that I keep using semi-colons instead of apostrophes, they;re next to each other on the keyboard but for many of the other mistakes it’s transposition of letters. Exisiting is another word I consistently get wrong but there are quite a few others too. I do speel check and re-read and often read again after publication and then fix my mistakes, I;ve tried to leave a lot of those mistakes in this post [had you noticed, well I;ve picked them out in red so you can?] so you can see just how bad it is and that ordinarily I’ll then fix 90% of them while I write [which is time-consuming in itself - going back and forward].

Anyway, I know there’s no need to apologise but it annoys me that it’s not better and it’s even more annoying that I’ve noticed it getting worse. I hope you all can be patient with it, I;ve no real excuse aside from the reason I’m probably rushing too much with my typing, maybe my hands aren’t what they used be, I’m not getting younger afterall ;) Thanks for your patience.

P.S. as for grammar... well that's an issue in itself and I ain;t got time for dat!

Imperial Knight - Cerastus in manufactorum pt 17

17 blog posts in and these are the last pictures I've taken before the Lancer is offically 'To Done'. I've mentioned there will be a banner and I may well add some purity seals here and there, maybe as awards for impressive feats on the battlefield but essentially after these pics the Lancer is complete.

These two shots show some extra orange that's been added to the 'hot' areas, it's really helped the OSL look more like what I was after. I've hardly used any yellow in these areas as I wanted it to be clearly orange and the objective force field barriers came up too yellow, so that was definitely a lesson learned.

The chest plates have now been glued in place, I love what I managed to do with it, much more reserved with the damage than elsewhere. A little annoyed that the left panel [as you look at it] is slightly higher up which makes the white stripe not mirror with the right as well as it should. Super critical but when you take pains to do something right and then find out the positioning negates that effort...

I do love what I achieved here and that I decided to do mirrored stripes as it was not the original intent but a decision well made. However, sculpt wise I do find it bulkier than I would like. Obviously you can choose not to put these on but that was never going to happen. I just think they could have been tailored [literally], perhaps the under arm areas trimmed down a bit, to make the torso more lithe as it appears a little top heavy now. But the armour is there to protect so without it would make little sense [although you could say that about a lot of the 40k universe]. Alternatively they could create 'force' armour similar to the gauntlet shield with emitters built into the ribbing. That would allow you to keep the athletic nature of the Lancer, echo the gauntlet shield and also still see the amazing detail underneath the armour plates, it'd be very mechanicum too.

The eyes on the Lancer are tiny, I think I did a great job on them but being so small it's very difficult to see them but they're definitely up to/beyond my expectation.

I have been able to fix the lance OSL, it's nothing fancy, I just managed to smooth the transitions and reach a glowing point. I think I could include some 'lightning' effects over the top of it to make it a little more interesting but for the time being I'm happy to leave it as is. I've cogitated, deliberated and agonised for months on this and I need to say 'To Done!' and move on to something new, else I'll make mistakes that don't need to be made.

This has been a really great project, I've loved all the comments and support throughout and I'm glad so many of you have persevered with the lengthy process [like you've any other option ;) ]. I should have the final pictures taken soons, so look forward to that but the big question is - what's next...?

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |