2010225:46
pm
A quick note to Chrome users
It's been brought to my attention that The Warforge's gallery features have not been playing well with Chrome, despite working just fine in Internet Explorer and Firefox (and other browsers). I've looked into this a bit, and it doesn't look like I'll be able to fix the problem myself, and since my browser stat logs show that a bunch of you are using Chrome, I thought I'd address the issue.
The good news is that Google's fixing the problem themselves. The gallery problem has been fixed with the latest BETA version of Chrome. As of 2/8/2010, the latest stable version of Chrome is 4.***. The latest BETA version is 5.0.317.2 Beta. You can download from Google at http://www.google.com/landing/chrome/beta/
Basically, the takeaway from this is that when Google has it's next version release, everything will go back to normal - the issue is with the browser and how it reads the gallery code, not the code itself, so there's little I can do to alleviate it with my current web coding knowledge.
Sorry!
2010219:23
pm
Game on!
So I managed to get out for a game today for the first time in... well, months.
I took some assorted pictures of the game, just for the fun of things. We both took absolutely silly lists - I took a bunch of warbikes with Wazzdakka, stormboyz, a pair of kanz, and a looted wagon, and he took two trukks, a looted wagon, a burna boy squad, a boyz squad, and a nobz squad with a boss.
I soundly lost both games, but I think it was more to do with my lack of familiarity with all the fast attack stuff I had on the board. Also, Nobz are impossible to bring down. 
20102110:23
am
Armed and equipped
Had time for a little more work on this Kommando character, so I finished off his other arm. I ended up moving the hand just a liiitle bit off to one side of his face, because I realized that I would never, ever be able to paint that face properly if I had that hand in the way. Hopefully the effect still works, though.
Edit: Actually, I just bent it back a little bit more to the front just now (post-pictures), since it didn't look enough like he was 'shhh'ing, so... there you go.
Z sent a lovely backpack along for him that I've been playing around with a bit. I stuck a Stikkbomb up top to hide where the backpack and the body join. I could have sculpted it onto the back properly, but I'm leaving the pack as removable for now just to make painting easier. I also added a small coil of rope that's hanging from the bottom of the pack right now - when I have a bit more time, I'm going to add a grappling hook next to the rope, and then probably hang a couple more gubbinz off the thing like a tankbusta bomb or that sort of thing. I'm also going to smooth out the sculpt a bit in the back, around the boot area.
Some of you may notice there's substantially more white styrene replacements on this model than in the previous photos. Much to my lament, it seems every time I handle the miniature like the big, ham-fisted moron that I am, some of the tiny details end up falling off, like his teeth or goggles. Very upsetting, but I'm trying to keep up with it by simply putting new ones on, since I can't for the life of me find something like a goggle lens when it falls off.
2010183:38
pm
Did you hear something?
So here's the deal!
Zsoulless was sculpting a rather lovely Kommando Nob based on the one from Dawn of War 2, and I've managed to get my hands on it!
This is what he gave me:
A couple of his teef went missin' on the trip over, but I've been sticking styrene replacements back in his gob. Some of the smaller gubbinz like grenades also fell off his straps, but I'll replace them soon enough. Z designed it without arms so that whoever eventually ended up with it could do whatever they wanted with it. I figured that I'd make him a Snikrot conversion, since I already had the arms lying around and he seemed deserving of such attention. I'm currently in the process of trying to sculpt the upper arms and shoulders so that they blend in properly.
His backpack'll see some tweaking - I want to add some ropes and grapples onto a pack for him.
And then, of course, I'll need some Kommandoz...
2010152:15
pm
Fire Hawks?
Something to think about for the dread banner.
Edit: Now with paint.
I'm not that great at freehanding, but I suppose it'll work after I'm finished touching it up a little bit. It doesn't have to look too terrific, since I plan on weathering the hell out of it to make it look centuries old. The back of the thing will look like parchment, which is why the parts that are hanging folded over are starting to be tan.
Just for those who are unfamiliar, the Legion of the Damned are rumored to be the remnants of the Fire Hawks Space Marines chapter after a trip through the Warp gone horribly wrong. Their chapter symbol was a mushroom cloud, because as I understand it their homeworld was destroyed in a nuclear event.
Edit: One more time, still trying to smooth it over a bit.
Some people seemed to be a bit horrified that the banner was yellow, but those are the Fire Hawk colors, so...
2010143:34
pm
Dabbling with an airbrush
I figured I'd get some paint onto this thing soon, so while I was messing around with the airbrush this morning I set about putting some color onto it. I primed black, and then used some Vallejo Model Air German Grey and US Grey to brighten the thing up substantially in the hopes that after a black wash or two, I'll be able to tone the greys down to a nice, richer-looking black armor.
There's a couple places where I could have done better with the spray, but I figure the washes'll help blend it all together decently enough. Before I do those washes, though, I'm going to set about base-coating the colors on this thing properly, which means picking out the bones, scrollwork, and any other details.
2010143:30
pm
Toothpaste, round two!
So I figured I'd keep experimenting a bit on the tank. Into the Warp it went, to stew in Simple Green for the better part of a week while I occupied myself at school. When I fished it out and scrubbed it down, I actually managed to get most of the paint off right down to the underlying styrene:
Then I set about hitting it with my ol' Krylon Rust Primer again, and airbrushed some brighter orange colors overtop just to try and make the rust brighter. After that, I started applying the toothpaste again, in the hopes that I might be a bit more conservative with it this time.
Then came an airbrushed coat of grey overtop - again, a lighter color than the final coal black I picture the tank being at the end, largely because I hope to use some black washes on the entirety of the thing to make the armor plates stand out more.
Then came the pivotal moment - about half an hour after the last spray, I stuck the tank under the sink again. You don't want to work too slowly when you're using toothpaste, because if you leave it on there long enough it'll turn rock-hard and won't rinse off. This time, I had a much stranger experience with rinsing the mask off - in some places, the water actually managed to get underneath the grey paint after I'd rinsed the toothpaste off, and it lifted larger patches of the paint off than I actually masked. However, it did so in a very organic manner, leaving me with an irregular looking, patchy paint and rust job that I actually sort've like.
I think this looks a lot less like camo than my first go around at this method, and I think it'll be workable in the long run. I'm going to probably stipple the rust areas with a very bright color like blazing orange to give them some irregular coloring, and then I'll set about adding the actual colors onto the plates of the tank that will be getting 'em. After that, a black wash should help make the whole thing a bit more Goffy.
201091:48
pm
Basing of the Damned?
Just to get some input on this, since it's something I've been pondering all morning: How should I base the legion?
Right now, I'm sort've liking the idea of them being atop some temple ruins, since that sort of thing adds to their mystery a bit. I've found two commercially-made bases that I'm considering right now:
Dark Age Games Groundwerks - Temple Ruins:
These are nice, but I'm not sure if I like them because of how well they're painted, or because of the actual designs. There's a very limited selection of them - only 3 smalls, two mediums, and one large, so I'd end up with a lot of repeating elements across the army. I'm not sure if that's good or not.
The other potential right now is Micro Art Studio's Temple bases:
These are nice, but a little hard to get (from Poland) and I'm not sure how much I actually like the repeating text elements in the floor.
What do you guys think? Any other ideas? Can anyone tell me from personal experience how either of these bases are? I can only seem to find painted pictures, so I'm not sure of the quality or detail on the actual pieces.
I'm also open to other ideas. I could just do the same old simple rock-basing I do for everything, but I felt like these guys deserved something a little more elaborate. Lava bases are practically cliche at this point, and would have too much of the same colors as the rest of the minature.
EDIT, FEB 9, 2010:
I've settled on the bases for my Legion. I'll be using the 'Ruins' series of bases from Scibor's Monstrous Miniatures:
They're very nice. They're also expensive as shit, but I figure I may as well go all-out if I'm buying bases. Hopefully the quality lives up to my expectations.
I think, despite buying these new bases, I'm still going to have to make my own custom base for my Legion of the Damned Ironclad. Why? I'm buying tickets to Gamesday Baltimore for this year, and I'm thinking that if painting the Dread goes well, I might enter it into the Daemons just for giggles... and their rules specifically prohibit using models and parts that aren't your own creation, so sticking him on a pre-made resin base is out of the question.
2010811:28
pm
Activate cloak-ing!
Here's a bit more on the Librarian, now tentatively named Aduro Terranum after the DakkaDakka.com forum member who suggested it; apparently it's some rough latin for the expression 'To Light The World Aflame', so it seems appropriate.
I found a cloak, courtesy of the... well, very, very, very old Von Carstein model from 4th edition WHFB. I certainly wasn't playing back then, but I picked this up off eBay on a lark, and I'm glad I did - it fits the back of Terminator armor like a glove.
A little dremelling in the small of the Terminator's back was needed, right below the vents, to get the cape to sit properly, but it's just the right height and width to go there. It splays out more to one side than the other, but I think the asymmetry adds a bit of interest to his pose. I'm currently picturing the left arm swept out, like he just swung it around from the front (which would work nicely with the cape). On the base, there'll be a ring of fire encircling the front left quarter of the miniature, gaining height as it nears the cloak and his hand. It's hard to explain, but I have a pretty clear image of it in my head, so you may just have to wait. 
I'm hoping this miniature firewall on the base will be acceptable to most players as a storm shield, because the pose I'm picturing wouldn't be too hospitable to me strapping a shield on the left arm. We'll see!
201085:14
pm
Powered by The Warp
I've been working on this on the side, as it were. I've always liked the idea of a Librarian, and back when I was working on my Salamanders I was collecting parts for a nice conversion. Most of those parts are no longer helpful to me, as I've switched over to the Legion, but I still want to make a Librarian for the army, so off I go.
The start of this conversion is actually a Terminator Chaplain. The reason for this is really simple. I was looking at the Terminator Librarian model and thinking to myself, "That's not going to work for the Legion. The head needs to be a skull." Fortunately, before I set about trying the miserable task of dremelling out the head cavity, I remembered that the Chaplain Terminator was... well, pretty much exactly the model I'd be making, so why not use one as the base? It's one of GW's best models, anyway, covered in a ton of rich detail.
It just so happened that I did have a Terminator Chaplain around, so I started working on him... and this is the first few small steps.
I'm waiting for the greenstuff to fully harden before I set about cleaning it up by sanding it a bit, but you get the idea of what's going on here. I carved a psychic hood that'd fit right over the normal Chaplain Terminator armor, and then greenstuffed the seam over - after sanding, it should hopefully be seamless.
I also yoinked a rather neat sword off a fantasy model -Archaon, from WHFB's Warriors of Chaos. (Side note: I still have the entire rest of the model, horse and all, and nothing to do with it. If anyone wants to buy it, drop me a message. 
) It's a good-sized flaming sword that I originally intended to use for my Salamanders - but it fits the Legion just as nicely.
When I get around to the left arm, I'm probably givin' em a Storm Shield, since that seems to be the preferred wargear loadout of everyone I've asked. Not sure what it's going to be, or how I'm going to make it yet though.
I also have no idea what this guy's name is, yet. Feel free to pitch ideas.
ArchaonA
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