One Step Forward...

So I mentioned in my previous post that I'd been home from work sick, and I managed to shift the earache, but the tinnitus and migraines might need another doctors visit :(

Anyhow, I managed to get a whole wealth of work done, and magnetised nearly all the weapon options a mounted Wolf Lord might need. It took a fair while yesterday, but it will be worth it, and I've not managed to find a straight answer as to how best he should be armed :)

I also managed to make him a base, which would have photographed better before primer...

I also alluded to some kind of special surprise to reveal this weekend, and it didn't exactly go as planned...

I bought an airbrush booth, after a lot of encouragement from a painter/gamer friend of mine at work. When the earache had subsided enough to break it out to test this weekend, I duly fired everything up, compressor still works, I still have some PTFE tape, great! I primed the base above, and the other TWC bases I made on Friday, plus my Wraithlord. I washed out the brush to get a coat of dark grey on the bases, the start of which can be seen above, and of course the brush got blocked.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to clean out the brush, and it seems (from the state of the needle) that I either put it away without cleaning it last time :( or the German grey i was using had some gunk in the cap which is now lodged in the 0.2m needle cover...
This was a bit annoying, as all I had managed to do was the work of a can of primer in about 5 times the time it would have taken :p

So the upshot of all this is that I now have the 0.5mm needle for primer and larger groups model basecoats, and a new brush in case there is something else wrong with mine, but that one will have the 3mm needle for more detailed things, and general work :)

I also ordered a brush holder and a quick release attachment set to switch between the brushes easily.

So, hopefully I'll be able to document Airbrush setup 2.0 at some point this coming weekend. That's all for now though

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Up and coming - June

I barely got anything done from my list last month :( in my defence, I wasn't accounting for the 8th edition announcement and various related excitement.

This doesn't mean that I've not done anything though, I've been working on getting armies ready for the new edition of 40k which has been no small task in light of not really knowing what is going to be good to have and what to equip it with :)

This month's work list is as follows, in context of the new edition of 40k:
Exodites - The Waveserpents & Wraithknight are very close to being table ready (except for paint) so I want to get these done, as my Eldar army is n the best state to be game ready when the new rules are released.
Space Wolves - Keep working on detailing dreadnoughts, character conversions & Thunderwolf conversion. Until the rules are out, I won't know what best to equip infantry with so I've put a bit of a hold on making them for now.
Bases - Still lots of bases outstanding from various Malifaux crews so I want to try and catch up with these
Scenery - Only two mdf building kits left so I'd love to get these off my list and assembled :)

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Wolves of Winter - Unrelenting

Once the bug bites, I find it hard to stop!

I made up the third 'rider' for the first set of three Thunderwolf cavalry, but because I needed a set of rider style legs for the Thunderwolf character conversion, I had to improvise. I must say that I'm pretty pleased with this, and it looks pretty much exactly how it did in my head which I'm chuffed about.

I'm sitting down tonight to start work on the first pack of Grey Hunters :) I've made a note on what they (currently) can & can't take so i don't get carried away, but I'll be applying the 'rule of cool' pretty liberally :D

On a side note, I went through a phase of buying d6 like they were some kind of precious commodity, perhaps a future currency in a post apocalyptic wasteland...
So I picked out the ones I'll be using for my Space Wolves :)

Busy weekend so maybe i'll get time to snap a couple of WIP shots before Monday

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Wolves of Winter - Dread wolves

Title is a bit forced, but I can't think of anything better on a Monday morning :p

After my last post about the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 my long time gamer friend sent me some pictures of conversions he had done for new iterations of characters he has featured in each version/re-work of his chaos marine to date. Needless to say that this was the gauntlet drop I needed to get me into gear making Space Wolves.

I'll admit that when I got my box out of the cupboard, I spent an hour or so in which I had hoped to get some hobby done being overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I had both in progress and not knowing where to pick up, and NoS and not knowing what to make from it with regard to weapon options etc. It was still useful to spend the time working out what was what though, and the following day I picked the Contemptor dreadnought conversion, and the Thunderwolf cavalry to work on.

I spent what felt like forever fiddling with the skull face-plate/helmet from the standard dreadnought kit, but finally made it fit. I also put the time into magnetising all the weapon options. I'd like to get some of the Forgeworld weapons for this dreadnought chassis, for aesthetics more than anything, the Heavy Bolter option looks awesome. Rules-wise it might make sense to have something other than Mulit-Melta/assault cannon too. Maybe I could use the standard dread chassis as more of a gun carriage?..

I just need to embellish with wolf iconography/furs and this is all done :)

It's possibly been around a decade since I assembled my last space marine, so it was a bit strange cutting and cleaning the pieces for the cavalry riders. I had trouble with the posing of the rider with the axe, as I wanted to use the 'hand holding fur' to make it look like he's actually riding the mount.  I want to try and make sure that whilst they look cool, I also include the weapons they should have somewhere on the model, like pistol holsters, and the Chainsword on Boltgun guy.

I need to do some more bases for the wolves but I'll be keeping them separate until they've been painted.

I think next up I'll try and make a squad of Grey Hunters. I've fallen into the trap before of making all the cool stuff like characters and special units, and then really not having much motivation to complete the rank & file guys. So, once the cavalry riders are built I'll do a unit of ten chaps with weapon options whilst I add detail to the dreadnought.

Then maybe i'll start work on the Thunderwolf Lord mount conversion :)

Thanks for stopping by :)
Lofty

8th Time's a Charm

There is a lot of noise and excitement at the moment about the upcoming edition of 40k. After all these years I can only say I'm skeptical. However with their recent revamp of the social media dept and engagement with the community, I can also say i'm quietly hopeful.

MY gaming buddy and I have been chatting about the sneak peaks that have been coming about about changes in the new edition, and have each agreed that if the rules are free as they are rumoured to be, then this would be a great chance for us to revamp his Thousand sons and my Space Wolves & Eldar Exodites.

I have a fair sized force of Space Wolves as pretty much a blank slate, with only a few miniatures assembled. I'm almost tempted to wait until the new rules are released in order to build these so that I can make them into useful configurations. The reality of this is more likely to be that I'll put them together as whatever looks good, and worry about it/proxy later :)

On the Exodite side of things, it all really depends on what the new rules look like as to what I should add next. I have a well rounded force with just the Wraithguard left to build, and the dragons to add weapon mounts to (and paint of course). I'd like another Wraithlord anyway even before the new dreadnought rules were teased, and I'm not convinced I want to make shining spears, or a warlock jetbike squad so I'm not sure what to do with the cold ones I have . I do want to make non-mounted warlocks and take another look at what aspect warriors I'd like to add and convert. I suspect that the merging of different Eldar into one codex will mean that I can make Wych/Howling Banshee proxies for example.

Other than that, it's quite exciting. This is the game that got me into the hobby after all, and without it I wouldn't be into roleplaying or any of the table top games I love to play and paint now. Or maybe I would, but it was definitely the top of the slippery slope I'm skiing down now :p

Wolves of Winter - Solstice

WIP Wednesday

I mentioned in my 2016 review post that I was going to be painting up some Space Marines to game eventually versus a friends resurrected Thousand Sons.

I've got lots on my desk at the moment, but when the gauntlet was thrown down, I managed to scavenge a fair sized lot of new on sprue Space Wolves from Facebook & ebay so the below is what I am working with so far:

2 x Start Collecting Space Wolves

Logan Grimnar

Space Wolves Terminators

Contemptor Dreadnought (from Betrayal at Calth I think)

Space Wolves Dreadnought

I also bought a Khorne Juggernaut from eBay to try and recreate the below image which I have had on many and varied phones since I spotted it many years ago, promising myself that one day I would attempt it:

I forged ahead and started adapting my Contemptor to accept the axe and sheild from the Venerable dread kit. I like the bipedal-ness ( ? ) of the Contemptor more with the armaments so it made sense to me to use this chassis for those weapons.. I will be magnetizing some of the options, so I just need to choose the alternatives and plug in the magnets.

I also managed to make a start on my Thunderwolf lord conversion. The plastic Juggernauts are nothing like the metal one in the picture I posted to start with, but I've got all the legs/paws sorted now.

To be honest, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by the amount of fur/cover up that is going to be required for this project. I'm sure however that when it is complete it will be worthwhile.

Lastly, I've got my terminators ready for painting, but some of them are torso/legs sub assemblies  to make it easier to paint so they aren't very photogenic right now. I hope I can manage to get some basing done for them soon though.

I've started lots at once here so it's hard to know what to do next. I'm hoping to get some focus/time over the holidays and have some progress to show soon. The idea is to get everything sprayed together and batch paint where possible :)

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty