Modelling Commandments

Well, time for my weekly post on how to be a better Warhammer enthusiast, that's right kids its Modelling Commandments! Now in HD!

This weeks Commandment hits home for all of us, because it's about our home away from home; your Freindly Local Game Store!

Thou Shalt Patronize Thy FLGS!!*thunder*

Our Batcave, our Fortress of Solitude, our Central Perk...the focal point and sanctuary for gaming culture; the Freindly Local Game Store. Maybe it's populated by redshirts. It could be a baseball card store that has had to "diversify" and it has a single table and barely any stock. Perhaps a pal of yours cashed in his Star Wars toy collection to live the dream. Whatever it may be, these hubs of activity are integral to our gaming world, especially because of the nature of our hobby. We need venues and local suppliers to keep our game alive. I have always HATED the toolbox whom walks into my store, looks at the racks for an hour all the while scoffing at the prices of the merchandise, and then criticizes the clerk/owner for "charging too much!". He then leaves in a huff declaring "I'll buy online, it's cheaper anyway!". On the weekends though, he deigns to lower himself and come by the store and use the free access to tables, terrain, and the companionship of other players. Now, I'm not advocating what Ron Saikowski's area store does http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2010/01/would-you-pay-to-play-40k.html , but I do see the mathematics behind buying at my local store. I refuse to pay for table access. I keep those tables free by keeping my store open by buying their products. In keeping that store open, I enhance the hobby and keep new players coming in. I live in Maine. Check out the northeast on Games-Workshop.com for stores selling/promoting this hobby. I'll wait. Back again? Awesome. Yeah, slim pickings in Maine. I live near Bangor, and 3 Geek Games is the only serious store for 200 miles. It's one of the only partnership level stores in New England; thats Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, AND Maine. Imagine if 3 Geek went out of business. I would have to drive 2 hours to get a simple game of Warhammer in on a weekend, forget about just popping in to say "Hi" either. The toolbox buying online is robbing himself and everybody else of not only a local venue, but the very culture that grows at these strange gardens. And why stop at just dumping liquid cash into your FLGS? Why not bring the most valuable commodity a store can get; new customers. Introduce someone to the game. If you see someone wandering around the store and they seem lost or maybe the clerk is busy with someone else, take it upon yourself to be a salesman for your hobby(with careful permission from those that work there, of course). A good tip I always follow for people just starting out and who are clueless; AoBR. If you don't know, then now you know. AoBR is the best advice. You could also ask the shop if there is any painting that needs doing. Maybe you could even make some terrain for the tables, or do maintenance on said tables! Your store will appreciate it, and it's owner will be touched by your willingness to really make the venue "owned" by the patrons.

A wild DREADNOUGHT appears!! Duel? Y/N

Here it is, fresh off the bench! Meet my Ironclad Dreadnought, Malatesta! I put a few more coats of yellow ink on him(thanks BigWill for pushing me not to give up on the Wil Davies method), and this is the result. I went whole hog and built the base all from scratch to match the base on my Mortis pattern Dread, I cut up pieces of plastic card, glued them together by their flat sides, then filed and drilled them to look rocky and craggy. I included some debris to aproximate a piece of vehicle armor, which you may not be able to see the Iron Warriors logo on, but the hazard stripes do a good job of intimating it's origin. The banner is my favorite part on this piece. I have always wanted to freehand a starfield onto a banner...and when the idea well ran dry, I figured to try my hand at it. I started with a chaos black, good and thick for consistent coverage, moved it to midnight blue, then enchanted blue. I ended the color at a lightened sky blue. The effect I wanted was the gloaming before the dawn, as the latin phrase on the right and left sides reads "Ut duliculo, sic nostromo justicia", or, "As dawn, so our justice". The motto means that, well, you pretty much have as much hope in stopping Malatesta from getting where he wants to be as stopping the impending dawn from breaking. The stars were accomplished by painting skull white in "+" signs and then rounding out the insides(does that make sense?). They still needed more, as all stars I think of ever seeing in pictures have a fuzziness to their shape, like a lack of defintion. I watered down a bit of skull white, maybe 10:1, and lightly applied it to the compass points of the stars. I then did some pointalism back ground stars for a bit of contrast. The three stars represent the three main branches of the traditions of the Sons Of Dorn; Imperial Fists, Black Templars, and the Crimson Fists.

Here on the right knee pad, I had a bit of a happy accident. I had given these pieces a simple green bath and while cleaning the knepad for this shin...I lost it and it fell down the drain. I was LIVID. I nearly scrapped the whole project, then and there. I dove into my bitz box for an answer. While sorting sort Empire WHFB bitz, I came across a sprue of unused shields, Lo and behold! a beautiful shield depicting a skull and a laurel! I based her black, threw on some red foundation and highlighted it, POW! instant kneepad replacemment. I call the decoration this modification represents "The Crimson Laurel". The story behind it is that any battle brother recieving, and surviving, grievous harm in the service to the Imperium is awarded this Laurel, representing his blood spilt for the greater realm of man.

When is yellow not yellow?

When it's vomit brown! I've finished a brand new Ironclad Dreadnought and I tried some new things with my layers to make the piece more yellow. I even switched up my brand of yellow ink to match what Wil Davies did. Alas, I was disappointed. The color can't seem to get to that yellow. They would make an excellent group of Howling Griffons.....but not Imperial Fists. I have to scrap my whole group of IF marines I have done; 5 devastators, 2 dreadnoughts, 1 razorback. I'm doing some experimentation with Sunburst Yellow and Vomit Brown, and I came up with some really nice mixes with a 2:1 ratio. I'm also going to bring the design on home as it were, and make the trim color the traditionally seen red on the shoulder pads and chest design.

This has been bothering me for a while now, when Johnny Buzzkill at my FLGS said "Wow. those are orange." I tried to keep myself on track and ignore his criticism. But I couldn't, cause he was right. It's never easy to admit that something may be beyond your skill level, and I'm afraid this task of turning my hand at this technique of painting yellow has eluded me. Not to despair, I can develop my own system of painting yellow! I should have a group painted up by the end of sunday, so I'll try to post 'em and get on top of developing my paint scheme. Perserverence!!

Modelling Commandments

Well, it's almost a new year, and to kick it off I have something new I was thinking about the other day; a list of Modelling Commandments I live by and wanted to share with the rest of FtW. I envy the weekly Rogue Trader Fridays(never miss a post!), and Ron's Top Ten List every Tuesday. So I suppose I'll break up the established tedium of midweek with this pushy bit of prose. My first Commandment?

Thou shalt not throw anything away!(lightning strike)

Much to my wifes' dismay, I never easily relinquish what some may consider 'trash'. Her constant inquiries into my need for percieved refuse is met with a hasty "Don't chuck it!". I'm not talking about sprue frames and such like(not trash), I'm talking about excised pieces of limbs I didn't quite use in a conversion. Who knows what use I may find for the right half shoulder of an Empire Handgunner?

In all seriousness, a hobbyist whom sees the value in the entire kit his model comes in is a richer man. Sprues can easily become rublle for a base, or more cunningly, a framework for a large model built from scratch! That beautiful box your Carnifex came in? Model priming tray! And would you seriously consider yourself a man if you tossed away any left over on-sprue bits? I've killed men for less!

This philosophy extends to everyday items that can be turned by a clever hobbyist into just plain old darn handy tools! Jars are a cinch for storage of tools and brushes; used up credit cards and gift cards are a brilliant plastic-card; old cd's broken up create dynamic basing materials! I put it to you, if it can't be used as a basing material, why own it?! Even old soda bottles can make great water cups when cut in half, way to go Macgyver!

Thanks for tuning into this first weekly post of Modelling Commandments at I Love Yellow Paint! Go forth and model my children! Hey, who thinks I might go to Hell over erasing the Commandments off the photo of Chuck Heston/Moses? I could have really garunteed myself a Hot Seat if I had put a gun in his hand. Oh well, next week!

IMPERIAL FISTS- LYSANDERS DEFENDERS
HQ
Captain Darnath Lysander

TROOPS
Tactical Squad x3 squads
-x5 extra SM , lascannon , powerfist , flamer, razorback with a twin-linked lascannon

ELITES
Ironclad Dreadnought
-heavy flamer “Malatesta”
Dreadnought
-twin-linked autocannon L arm, twin-linked autocannon R arm “Cataphractus”
Dreadnought
-twin-linked lascannon “Arturius”

HEAVY
Devastator squad
-x4 lascannons
Devastator Squad
-x4 heavy bolters
Predator Tank
-twin-linked lascannon , lascannon sponsons “Vitruvius”

____________________

This is my army list for the Fists. I picked this force with the intention of turtling it shamelessly. I realized that one of the things that Space Marines do is deal with abuse. People don't fear a basic save roll of 3+ for nothing. Of course, the defensive lean doesn't take away from the Imperial Fists general strategy anyway, that being masters of fortifications.

Lysander was a natch for my HQ, as he is a monster. He gives all the yellow boys stubborn, and his bolter drill rule may seem useless, I think of it as a tactical challenge. It would seem natural to throw him into a squad of termies wielding storm bolters, but imagine the hilarity of unleashing 12 re-rollable hits from a fully equipped devastator squad wielding heavy bolters. See where I'm going with this?

The tac squads all have razorbacks with dual buttercannons. I will split up the squads into purpose built detachments, half taking the lascannon and plinking tanks, the other half rolling out in the razorback with the powerfist and flamer to raise merry hell with big monsters, IC's, etc..

The lascannon devs are pure antiarmor, simple. The heavy bolters are anti-infantry power-washers, hopefully doubling their efficacy with Lysander ram-rodding the unit. Predator is fairly obvious too.

The 'noughts are where things get interesting. See, the idea with this army isn't just "Hammer 'em from afar.", it's "Hammer 'em from afar and then OMYGODSTOPHITTINGMEWITHTHESEISMICHAMMER!!" See what I mean? Reel them in with the threat of firepower and then pound them to greasy spots using the anvil of my dreadnoughts(not the Mortis dread, he'll be too busy blowing things away).

Hey, if this strategem doesn't work, well, at least they will look good losing. Peace!

Mortis Pattern Dreadnought. Autocannons akimbo!

Well, some doubted, some hated, but Mortis pattern dreadnought cares not! This is actually an Attack on Black Reach dread with Forge World autocannon hate-throwers. I went really simple, nothing fancy. The metallic portions were the biggest example; just boltgun metal washed with badab black. It dulled down the metallic so the focus is really on the yellow. This bad boys name is "Cataphractus", a nod to the fact that he shoots....alot.

Note; yellow effect was created using Wil Davies yellow techniques! Check him out at cbstudios.com! Really rad minis!

I was just thinking to myself while scanning a ton of photos into my compy, "Gee, this is tedious. And boring. You know what else is tedious? Painting that yellow onto Imperial Fists. Hell, I bet if Imperial Fists were real, they would use painting yellow as a masochistic ritual instead of The PainGloveohmygodepiphany!!!" That's right. Yellow paint plus agony plus Games Workshop equals Imperial Fists. The Imperial Fists use the mythical Painglove to shrive a candidate/repentant Space Marines' response to pain. The bizarre confluence can mean only one thing; GW is using the Imperial Fists as a eugenics project to weed the inferior and weak from the strong in the hobby community! Fellow IF enthusiasts!! We are the future, rise up and throw off your chains of the oppressive multicolor pallette! YELLOW PAINT SHALL RULE ALL! CROCUS SCEPTRUM LOCUS!!