Nurgle Heldrake - Blight Drake – Coversion WIP: Brownstuff = Greatstuff

I finally got my hands on the Brown/Aluminium Putty by P3. It is indeed like Greenstuff: all you need to do is kneading the two components together until they are mixed up evenly (and the putty gets a brown-metallic look) and then you are good to go.

The difference to Greenstuff is noticeable right away. The Brownstuff is firmer and not as sticky, this way you can start even with some more finer modeling right away. I sculpted the carapace shape with the pluggers and it stayed... more or less. The Brownstuff has a "memory effect", but it is not as drastic as with Greenstuff, and the readjustments are easy to do. What is also easy (and fun) to do with the Brownstuff: corrosion.
Even though this was more or less a test I am very happy with the result, and assume that the next segment is going to be even crisper.

I am not sure if I can replicate this very specific look of the original carapace 100%, but I am confident that it will be close. Once the Blight Drake is painted and all the rust and weather effects are applied it will look consistent for sure.

Plague Zombies - Hollow Bases

Before starting the mass production of the Plague Zombies I have to build 70 hollow bases first. Yes, I could just have bought some more of the scenic bases I got for my Plague Bearers, but this would have been too costly. So I went the cheap way and turned a bunch of old 28mm round bases into hollow bases for creating the swampy subsoil.

Creating hollow bases isn't too complicated.

1. Take a standard base and drill small holes on the outer edge of the upper base part. Make sure that distance between each hole isn't too big (I drilled around 20 holes per base)

2. Take a hobby knife and cut out the top part of the base. The drilled holes will help you not damaging the rim (it might dent or even break when you put pressure on the base)

3. Glue the base rim on 0,5mm thick plasticard (with proper plastic glue with solvent that melts the plastic). This will give it support and stability.

4. Carefully remove the remaining plastic flesh with a hobby knife and sand paper.

5. Cut away overhanging plasticard and sand the base carefully to remove irregularities.

Remarks
1. You can glue the base on the plasticard right away and then start drilling and cutting. Actually, this way you will have the support from the plasticard right from the get-go.

2. For the clean up part you can use a Dremel or similar electric tool to remove the remaining plastic pieces. It is much faster as you sand/melt the plastic away, but you also have to be careful to not damage the rim.

Granted, it took me a couple of hours to get the 70 hollow bases done, but figuring out how to do them in a efficient way was a lot of fun, and in the very end it was much cheaper than buying blank ones.

Plague Zombies - Prototype

While waiting for my Brown/Aluminium Putty to arrive I started working on a  horde of Plague Zombies. I was gathering different bits and pieces over the last couple of month to build Zombies that resemble former Imperial Guard Soldiers without using the Zombies from Games Workshop as they are completely out of proportion and simply look goofy.

The different components I am going to use for the 70 Zombies I plan to build are:
- Zombies from Mantic Games 
- Ghouls from Mantic Games 
- Conscript Legs from Victoria Lamb Miniatures 
- Cadian Shock Troops Bits: Helmets, Canteens, Lasguns, Knifes, etc.
- Custom Made Hollow Bases for the Swamp Theme of my Nurgle Forces
- Rivets from a used Water Filter & Greenstuff

I am going to mix and match all the different parts as I see fit: some of Zombies will get helmets, some of them will get boots/not as ragged combat trousers made out of the Conscript Legs, some of them will get a lasgun or other weaponry in their undead hand to smack down enemies, some will get some extra guts hanging out of their open bellies... and all of them will get pustules and stand ankle-deep in swamp water (just like my Nurgle Daemons).

As a little proof of concept - having an idea is one thing, actually implementing is something completely different - I build a prototype:

 
The Zombie wasn't too complicated to assemble, I just have to make sure that I do the basing before I put the torso/arms/head on legs when I go into mass production. This way it will be easier to get the filling putty and the sand into the hollow base.



  

40K Tournaments: A Blast From The Past

Back then (almost 20 years ago) I used to attend tournaments. Since then my hobby focus has changed: for me it's all about the modelling and painting, about interesting scenarios and about the narrative - I am a fluff player.

But I am curious - especially after hearing/reading all the rants about new and overpowered codex-books (I couldn't care less) - and so I joined a couple of guys of the local gaming group and went to a tournament last weekend. I didn't play, I was just there to watch, listen and to take photos. And it was very interesting.

Yes, there were - in my opinion - awkward armies: I never ever would for example allies my Raven Guard with another Space Marine Chapter to get the benefit of a specific unit or special character. I have noticed that a lot of tournament players are solely focused on optimizing their army (while dealing with tournament specific restrictions) and to me it is a pity as it means that you miss out on a lot of all the great things of the hobby like campaigns and scenarios, formations or the extra bits like Kill Team or Zone Mortalis.

Two things I didn't understand at all
1. Messy gaming tables: I really don't get why there is food and drinks or stacks of paper on a table. There only should be aside of the armies (of course), terrain, objective markers, some dice, templates and the measuring tape (and even those I put aside when it is not my turn).
2. Bad treatment of miniatures: I saw miniatures just thrown in a box or piled up to a heap like if you didn't had to invest any time or money to get them on the table. This actually made me very sad.

Nonetheless it was a positive experience. The atmosphere was, even though it was all about the competition, friendly, and it was great to see some well painted armies on the table and to have some really nice conversations. Being at the tournament, even though I was just a fly on the wall (how fitting for a follower of Nurgle), definitely fired up the hobby engine to get "stuff done", and maybe I will even attend one in the near future as an active player as well.

 

Nurgle Heldrake - Blight Drake – Coversion WIP: Greenstuff vs. Brownstuff

I started modelling the carapace using Greenstuff and ball-shaped pluggers. The goal was to reproduce the "hammer finish" look of the armour of the headpiece of the drone.

It all went off quite well; I was able to sculpt the basic shapes and get some proper dents into the putty. However, the end result wasn't satisfying at all.

Even though I worked with Greenstuff before on various miniatures I wasn't aware that it has some kind of "memory effect" - that's what I have learned after doing some online-research. So, Greenstuff tends to forms/bounces itself back to its former shape; it is not a lot, but enough to soften up modelled hard edges. And this is exactly what happened to the "hammer tends" on the carapace: they turned into some soft organic looking mush that has nothing in common with how the headpiece looks like (I am frustrated, so I am a bit exaggerating).

I did some tests and in theory I could wait 90-120 minutes until the Greenstuff has tried up to a state where it is not forming back, but then it also will be difficult to get into shape in general, and it is not guaranteed that I will get the hard edges that I want/need. Waiting that long to try hope that it will work out for each segment of the carapace is too risky: I need a procedure that I can reproduce to create a consistent look.

I started with looking for an alternative modelling putty. I ended up with ordering a pack of Brown/Aluminium Putty by P3. Due to aluminium particles it's supposed to hold up sharp edges and therefore is "ideal for modelling armour or weapons". I hope that this is case.
All I have to do now is waiting for the Brownstuff to arrive.

Nurgle Heldrake - Blight Drake – Coversion WIP: Carapace

After my short excursion with my Raven Guard I am back on track with the Blight Drake. After finishing the body I started working on the carapace. As a first step I mapped out how I want to create the carapace using Photoshop. Doing some mock ups digitally gave me a good idea on the ideal number (and size) of segments as well as on the concavity of the carapace.

I then started modelling the carapace with green stuff, starting at the very with a small segment as a proof of concept. To make sure I am able to reproduce the same "hammer finish" look of the armour of the original drone I bought some ball-shaped pluggers on ebay. I was quite happy with the result of the armour. Something I wasn't happy with at all were the edges of the carapace segment. The resin parts are too thin and fiddly to reproduce them with Greenstuff in a proper way (at least for me).

So I went back and segmented the carapace of the Blight Drone using Plasticard. It took some time to get the shape and size of all the different archs right, and a little bit of more time to actually to fit them into the back, but it spending the time was worthwhile. Now I not only have a proper template for each segment, the Plasticard also helps to reproduce the same look and quality of carapace of the original model. 

Next step is actually (and finally) start modelling the carapace. I am really looking forward to it, especially when it comes to modelling all the corroded elements - I assume it will just as fun as working on rotten flesh (this sounds weird). 

Spreading the Focus: Raven Guard Centurions and Land Speeder Storm

I am fiddling around with the Blight Drake for quite some time. Good thing is that I am getting there. The Underbelly is done and now I have to work on the upper carapace (to then do the detail work on the belly). Bad thing is my progress is slow... simply because I don't have that much time for the hobby at the moment. It is exhausting and because of that I had to do something else, something were I can have something done rather quickly to have the feeling to have something accomplished.

So I did a little break from the Blight Drake and worked on some support for my Raven Guard. I started building a Landspeeder Storm (the more Scouts the better) and Centurions. Even though I couldn't resist to some minor adjustments to the models - I am going to remove all heraldry, icons, purity seals etc. from my Raven Guard - I was able to put the miniatures together rather quickly. And it was a joy not to worry and wonder about how you are going to put something together or how to model it, but to just glue it in place and its done. The only thing I still have to do building wise is to magnetize the weapons of the Centurions... but this is going to be a different story. 

From now on I definite will work on two or three things in parallel to make sure to get some diversion. I always thought that this is bad, but with projects that drag along over weeks and months it is good and healthy and to be able to jump on something else to get some distraction and the feeling of having actually something accomplished.