Ready for paint

Finished the build side of this fella last night. Added a holstered Bolt Pistol and some grenades to his belt, filling in gaps with GS. I also decided to add studs to the four main points of the star symbol. I knew this would be a fiddly process but I didn't appreciate how little green stuff would be required to make a stud of reasonable size – I'm talking such a tiny amount I had to hold my breath. They may just fall off once paint goes near it, but thought it was worth a go.

With that all done and dry I based him up, with a bit of luck I'll get to add some paint this weekend.

It started with a star ...and skull

 
Just a quick update.

I've been sculpting a first attempt at the new Dark Templar symbol on my benchmark marine. Took a couple of evenings to let the star icon cure properly, then file it and sculpt the skull.

I'm pretty pleased so far, although the proportions are out – I didn't lose my temper which must be progress!

I'm going to sculpt more details on this figure, then paint him up as the benchmark Dark Templar.

May The Force Be... in the attic

When we were back in the North West at the beginning of the month for my nephew's christening we stayed over at my mom's. Given that I am slowly approaching 40 years old, have a wife and a mortgage I thought it was only right that I cleared some of my crap out of my mom's attic – much to my wife's chagrin.

Imagine my delight when I (re)discovered my Star Wars collection. My mom gave away my collection of figures and vehicles from the 70's, so when I was finally in full time work and able to buy stuff myself (coinciding with the re-releases in '97) I went mad and had stuff imported from the States, trading rare and exclusive figures with peeps all over the world.

Whilst I knew they were kicking around up there somewhere, I had forgotten how much I had (the pic at the top of the page is only a fraction). So my job this afternoon is to move these boxes into our attic (having taken up most of our spare room for two weeks since we got back).

The tool box pic above shows the figures I opened – rest assured that the models of any real value are well and truly sealed and packed away ready to be opened in another 30 years to be introduced to Ebay ..or 2040's equivalent!

You snooze you lose...

 ..that's a saying around these parts that crops up quite a bit and it's one that applies to my Dark Templar project right now.

The original concept was to create an entire MkVI force that looked pretty unique – I had heard talk of such projects being done before but had never actually seen one done properly. As usual, I talked and talked about it, but barely got started. Then along came Forgeworld and popped out a range of products that, to be honest, I think most of us marine players have been wanting for a long time – viable generic resin kits of all the major marine armour types. The MkVI guys above look good (though I'm not a big fan of the leg poses) and even the Raven Guard beakies look cool.

Lo and behold, every man and his dog can now create an entire MkVI force (or even a MkV, IV or III if they had enough cash), so the main concept of my army is not so unique and the phrase 'taken the wind out of my sails' springs to mind.

Having said all that, nothing's changed. I'm still getting rather enthusiastic at going back to this long-delayed masterpiece. My guys are definitely different from the Forgeworld beakies, and rather than get hacked off by the new releases I'm seeing how I can incorporate elements into my project to make my life easier!

Looking through the stuff on my paint tray I also see some Blood Angels stuff I really want to get finished too. So, given that today is major major patch day in the World of Warcraft and servers are likely to still be down (or buggy or over populated) when I get home this evening, I think I'll dust down my paintbrushes and tools, spend a quiet evening reacquainting myself with 40k.

Remember me...

After a sustained absence of nearly 5 months I am finally showing my face again.

I left rather abruptly back in June, after my monumental transatlantic game of 40k with BSmoove, somewhat burned out. Life caught up with me – family/work/friends/etc. and it's taken me a long time to rekindle my enthusiasm to sit down at the painting table again. Apologies to those folks I left hanging a bit.

There will be almost no opportunity for me to game anymore, so the focus will be on my dabbling with paints and conversions. Things will be a lot more low key than in the past – creating a intimidating painting schedule is one of the things that contributed to my absence. I just want to enjoy what I do, so if I'm not enjoying it I won't do it. Needless to say there will be a lot fewer posts – or at least posts with newly painted/converted models in them. I may be commenting on things a little more, and commenting on non-40k things too.

So there we have it, I'm kinda back – footstep by footstep – and we'll see how we go.

Thanks all for waiting...