Traitor Gaurd Conversions

These are the Auxiliaries I envisioned for my CSM Death Gaurd army.  Going along with the Nurgle theme, I've made the Traitor Gaurd out of, surprise, a variety of Gaurdsmen, and Beastmen.  I haven't gone all the way with making every TG a goatman, I've incorporated several 'tainted' gaurdsmen, to represent inductees that haven't been transformed  fully by exposure to the toxins and chaos-naughtiness.

 All the wacky spikey handweapons were taken from Empire Flagellants.  I needed something a bit more sadistic than simple weapons provided by most kits.  I've also kept several flagellants arms with the manacles still intact, as the TG will be Penal Legionnaires.

RELAUNCH AND DEDICATION TO GRANDFATHER NURGLE!!

Well, as all good servants of the rotting carcass that squats on the decaying throne of Terra, I have had a revelation and become a convert to Chaos!  Not for me the pointless pursuit of war and bloodshed, nor the chasing of endless pleasure, or even the machinations of fate itself....all bow before the inexorable march of entropy!  All praise Nurgle, and his finest servants; the Death Gaurd!! 

Terminators don't give a damn

Behold!

Are you not entertained?!

Been making a bit of a mess lately with a little bit of yellow and a whole lot of Terminator. The bases you see on the right are just termie bases with a different material from the usual green stuff; plumbers putty! It's a two-part ceramic-like material and I used some tools to mold in the cobble stone pattern. Kinda an experiment to be honest :) I'll have the rest of tomorrow to put some finishing touches on these guys; miniwriting, decals, final assembly...

The thunder has been broughten!

Hey fellas! After another loooooong hiatus, I've picked up the old brush again and once more started slaving at my Imperial Fists. For the more astute readers, maybe you've heard of my old Fist army I sold got into the hands of the owner of Battle Foam and now holds a hallowed place of honor in a display case in the American southwest. They've also been mentioned on 40k radio and referenced as "the mustard marines". Hmmph. How undignified.

I'm continuing my newer paint scheme of yellow which stays truer to the old character of my stalwart Imperium defenders. I've also worked on my "counts as" list, switching from an all terminator Loganwing army, to a more conservative DA deathwing setup. I'm including several LR's and a Dreadnought. Nothing fancy.

Since picking up a second job for the holidays I've also come into the proverbial clams, and plan to bring more inventory into the collection. It has become truly staggering in it's breadth and size.

Please stay tuned for more posts forthwith, and the juicy pics therein!

Here comes the rain again...

I just sold my Imperial Fists army. For 200$. Yowza.

See, I have several addictions in addition to 40k. I love Star Wars. To that point, i needed cash to buy a Mandalorian helmet. I know, huh?

More to the point, I've been working towards finishing my IF terminator force. Though I did sell my TH termies :( I still have a lot to finish.

Don't worry, I did sell the army to a good friend of mine. He needed a new force for 'Ard Boys, and he's an amazing player. I know he'll do it justice.

ILYP, OUT!

Terminators and Land Raiders

Imperial fist Terminator Squad

'nuff said.

DUST TACTICS core set review

Today I am changing gears. For a year and a half I have been extolling the virtues of yellow paint and it's application to tiny men in the service to the Holy Emperor of Mankind. Well, in my search for a suitable game to play with the kids where I work(I am a correctional officer at a juvenile facility), I stumbled over some interesting images of mech/tanks at Fantasy Flight Games, purveyors of some of the finest board games ever made. The pictures intrigued me and I looked further for clarification. I was met by some beautiful and stylish miniatures(35mm, non heroic scale). I had to have it.

I would give the core set that I purchased from FFG an 8/10. The box was well packed and designed to accept the rigors of shipping, no shifting here! The rules are concise and uncomplicated without being boring. The Infantry models were the only low point in the box. The pieces themselves were very well made, but lots of the weapons were bent. For some strange reason all the infantry pivot at the waist. Must be a European thing. The vehicles, of which you get four, are beautifully made, lots of detail and they don't simply look like tanks thrown on mechanized legs. I wish they had come unassembled however, as they had quite a bit of flash and I really enjoy putting together my own minis :) On a side note, the box also came with a DUST comic book. Yuck. It was terri-bad. Obviously translated from a foreign language. At one point it illustrates a squad of Allied Rangers being ambushed by a tank, the tank turns on its flood lights and one of the squad screams "I AM BLIND!" before being gunned down. I almost laughed out loud reading it. So in conclusion; DUST TACTICS, buy it for the rad minis, not for the atrocious comic. ILYP OUT!!

pretty friggin' nasty huh? TAKE THAT SENTINELS!!

Imperial Fist Terminator

Thar she blows! I have finished my first terminator for the Fistwing army. I'm going to go with "Fistwing" until something better comes along. :)

You can see I have given this fella the converted TH/SS I had been working on, and they came out beautifully. I also went with a different paint scheme for this IF. I have switched from a vomit brown/flesh wash ink/yellow ink to Iyanden Darksun to Bad Moon Yellow with wash of Devlan Mud. Sometimes you need to explore where the whim will take you. That and I'm running out of Yellow Ink.

I was really pleased with my restraint on not making the shadowy areas any darker, subtlety can be it's own reward, huh?

I am also proud to say I have finally figured out how to get really good writing on my figs, I dropped the Micron ink pen and took a medium stiff bristle brush witha super fine point and some Chaos Black and did some understated squiggly lines on the purity seals, and on certain points on the armor. In the shot above you can see a better detail of the scratchbuilt storm shield from my last post. Bad-ass.

I got to use micro-sol/micro-set for the first time. I had to practice with it for a few times before actual use on the mini, familiarization is very important when your using a tool or technique for the first time. Save yourself the grief and tears and PRACTICE. I like the IF symbol, and with the MS/MS, the decal look beautiful. It literally has that "painted-on look".

This is a close up of the base. Not only did I change up paint techniques, but I also tried some completely different things with the bases. No more desert bases, I took a ball of GS and flattened it out onto the termie base, took a modelling tool coated in a lubricant and did a slate/flagstone design on it. It serves to not only expand my skill, but also gives the termies some extra height because of the GS platform they stand on. See ya next time!

Scratch Built Storm Shield

That's the finished product. I'm pleased it came so close to what I had envisioned. It's not that I don't like the basic storm shield, I just felt I could give it more character.

I started by removing the buckle that connects it to a normal shield.

The main portions were of course fashioned from plasticard, the back a thicker version and the front piece was a paper thin section. My wife handled the piece last and shifted the tail-piece without my knowledge. Supposedly accidentally. Women, can't live with them, can't keep them away from your figs.

Here's the rear where I placed the buckle from the standard shield, I bent it to purpose with some rubber bands and placed the buckle inside the curve so it would reinforce and adhere well.

I then drilled some small holes down the middle and placed some miniature beads(found in a household Brita water filters' filter). I battle damaged it quite a bit in hopes of taking the eye away from the misalignment of the thin piece of plasticard. Last of all, I put a large cluster of purity seals to cap it off.

Thunderhammer Conversion Work

I finished my deciding on what my next project will be! Loganwing army dressed as Imperial Fists! I picked up a package of CCW Termies and began the process of making things difficult for myself. I didn't feel the typical termies had enough character, likea blank canvas. They have lots of conversion bits for Wolf Gaurd, and the Deathwing, so how could I bring the "oomph" to these guys? Observe the picture above. Plain old thunderhammer, right? Yup.

These guys right here are a pair of spear points from Empire Knights and an Aquila from the IG vehicle options sprue. These are the beginnings of a more characterful weapon.

I removed the rear portion of the hammer, and the eagle head from the bottom of the haft.

The eagle was removed from the end of the haft.

I attached both spear points to the opposing ends of the hammer, they give it a really baroque, straight from the Heresy look. I cut the aquilla in half, folded it over and glued the two halves together for a double sided aquilla sticking off the back! Pretty happy!

Wait 'til you see the shield I'm scratch-building for this beast!

Imperial Fist Thunderfire Cannon and Titan preview

Well, in my last post I kinda came down on GW for not making a TF cannon with good meeting seams on the barrel...well I was wrong. When I put the stabilisers on the barrel, the seams completely disappear. Sorry GW, my bad.

This model was one of my favorite to ever paint; Techmarines are one of my all time favorite sculpts. The models that are considered your typical TM(the one that come with the servitors) have so much going on on there model, but it doesn't look busy. They look like some crazy eccentric mechanical marine. Which is pretty representative.

I only painted the helmet, right shoulder pad and the arms of the servo arms in a Mars red color. I went with mechrite red, put some badab black in any shadowy areas, and did some subtle highlighting with a 50/50 mechrite red/blood red.

I love this damned cannon. Weep in fear horde players!!

Here we go. Mars pattern Titan from my pal Nick(see past posts with Space Wolves projects). My pal Zach started painting it for him and never finished. Can you friggin' well say dust? YES. I'm torn between taking all the paint off and just finishing what Zach started. On another issue with this monstrous project....I have to assemble it. I'm not really looking forward to it. But I am the modelling masochist, so I had better get on it.

Interior detail.

Fight the Power

Well, here's my latest attempt to resist building upon my IF force....failure. I finished this LR just the other day. It's got a bit more white on it than I had originally planned on, but I feel it's an excellent contrast to the yellow and the black.

I kinda went decal crazy with this piece, but you can only build so many of these beasts in your life and this one's mine. I liked the thunderbolt decal so much that the next LR I produce will have a huge thunderbolt going across the entirety of the chassis.

What your staring at in possible puzzlement is the front of a thunderfire cannons' business end. I am currently not pleased with GW, as this paperweight is so poorly moulded that the ends don't match even after I spent half a day trying to reshape it. Frustration.

In other news, my lord and master has assigned me yet another task, this one of "Titan"ic proportions! Get it?! It's a pun and a teaser all in one!! God I'm exhausted. Yellow Paint, out!

"Give us the tools, and we will finish the job." Winston Churchill

It's done. I have at last finished my Imperial Fists army. All 2000 pts of it. Here stands Lysander, exemplar of the Imperial Fists. I used lots of scab red as that's the deepest red I could find. Nearing the end of his construction, his cape was missing something. I decided to free hand a bit of ornamentation onto the interior of his cape, and it really carried the piece.

This is a close up of his massive shield. Came out really clean.

I freehanded a Fists emblem on his right shoulder. Here's also a good view of the base. I didn't want to go bananas on his base, just a good solid sand base. This was my first ever metal piece, I was most concerned about pigment rubbing off due to over-handling, but he performed like a champ!

The Future and Other Things

My time painting my core force is coming to an end. I'm kind of sad. For the last year and more I've dedicated most of my modelling time and painting efforts towards my yellow fellows. I've been toying with the idea of splitting my next extension for my force into a White Scars pure bike force(see above photo....ok, so those are LotD, but I love doing choppers, and those ain't mine btw!). I also want to continue the possibility of converting a Kor'sarro Khan counts as Fist version. What the duece is it with GW not making a KK model on a friggin' bike? My pals want to convert a model of him on foot with a "Terra or Bust" sign. Wait a few days and I'm coming out with my last devastator squad, then comes Big Daddy Pain, Darnath Lysander!

This is a piece of fan art by a deviant art artist whom goes by the name Aerion the Faithful. He's been in the game for quite a while, and his art is phenomenal. He hasn't fallen into that lame-ass trend of looking like so much anime. And he's a fan of the game(obviously). He also does commission work, which is pretty friggin cool.

Ok, this portion of my blog entry is dedicated to fan tattoos. I have two Star Wars tattoos myself. They mean alot to me. I didn't get them on a whim or have them done by craptastic artists. I plan to have my entire right arm be a sleeve for Star Wars, and my left arm is going to be for a Imperial Fists sleeve.

I love tattoos, which is funny because I hate needles. I wouldn't advise just anybody getting ink. You have to think about what you want, why you want it, and where on your body you're going to get your ink set. Most importantly, where you get the work done. Check out your shop, get to know your artist. Don't hesitate to demand things from your artists, they aren't the ones getting a permanent piece of art inserted into their flesh.

Pose like a team, sh*t just got REAL

It's been a year since I started I Love Yellow Paint, and the hits just keep on comin'! My third and final Tactical squad is completed. I had alot of varied poses going on in my squad, both for fun and to break up the monotony.

Here's the backside of the sergeant.

I gave him a head from a Cadian Gaurdsmen, talk about a promotion! The Cadian sprues have lots of gritty faces for anyone looking for alternatives to the usual stuff packed in the Space Marine Kits.

I took a kneeling marine from the sprue and instead of giving him a missile launcher, I have him surveying the terrain ready to pop off some shots at heretics and the like.

Here's a beaky that's lost an arm in the service to the Emperor but still fights on with an augmetic replacement! How better to continue to fight on than with the faithful bolter in one hand and a chainsword in the other? I painted "REX" on one side of the sword and on the other unseen side "IMPERIUS".

Next in my sites are the final Devastator squad, and not long after, Big-Daddy Pain himself, Darnath Lysander!