Time off for good behaviour

Got a holiday coming up, finally a chance to play some games!

I picked up a new matt varnish, I've been trying a couple of experiments with it. I've painted a base, coated half in gloss varnish, then (after leaving it a full 24 hours to dry of course) brushed on strips of varnish of varying thickness. So far it's looking good. Whether the varnish is thick or very thin it seems to give a nice matt. Watered-down varnish gives a slightly shiny finish that is uniform (it looks the same on both the gloss and bare paint), so I guess I won't be watering it down unless I'm after a satin finish. But hopefully I won't need to since a thick layer does not seem to go shiny the way other varnishes have.

But just to be sure, I've left the base on a window sill that catches the sun on sunny days. When I get back from my holiday in a month's time, I'll see how the varnish has held up. I obviously won't be doing any painting in the meantime.

I haven't done much painting in the last month, partly from being busy and partly from feeling a lack of enthusiasm. The varnish problems are a part of it, and the recent problems with unbalanced codices I'm reading about online is also a factor. Anyway, I tried an acrylic varnish remover on a clouded Crimson Fist model, but it didn't work (it helped a bit but then started taking the paint off the edges while there was still cloudy varnish on the flats - I suspect it's really meant for flat paintings). I also tried olive oil with limited success.

About the only progress I made was to strip the paint from my Harker model that I've been using to experiment with painting skin. Though I have yet to find a method that really works for me, Harker had lost all definition. I'm trying a new method on another model, but it'll have to wait until after I get back. I tried to strip the paint from the glowing Grey Knight, but for some reason I'm having trouble getting it all off.


I did however help my cousin paint a skeleton. It's her first mini, and I think it came out very well - I couldn't do much better myself. She seemed to enjoy it, I tried to show her a balance of techniques - hopefully enough to make it interesting and not so much that it bored her. The design on the shield is a stylised M, by the way.



In other news, work on my game engine has been progressing. Luckily the trouble with my arm turned out to be unrelated to the use of my laptop on the train, so I can keep working. I really want to get to the point where I have visible progress again, but it's looking like that will take a while. So for the forseeable future, I won't have any screenshots. That doesn't mean that I'm not getting anywhere though.

Disheartened

The varnish I used on the Crimson Fists has gone slightly cloudy and it now looks (to my eyes at least) poor and inconsistent. I tried to take some photos, but you can't really tell anything is wrong from the photos, so I'm not bothering to post them.

I started painting those guys something like 4 months before I got around to actually finishing them. Even though I certainly didn't 'spend 4 months on them', it's still feels as if they took a long time for nothing. It's very disheartening. And it's worrying; I used the same varnish for Chaplain Sebastian. Is is going to get ruined eventually? Has it already started and I just can't tell yet?

What's more, it's off-putting: I keep hearing people complain about the various matt varnishes they've used. Sprays can go cloudy or 'powdery' if you use them wrong or the temperature or humidity is not suitable, and my own experiments with a range of satin and matt varnishes have mostly failed - in fact I was very happy when this one initially seemed to work because the problem of how to varnish my minis made it feel pointless to paint until I could find the solution.

Typically every matt varnish I've tried before this one goes shiny if you apply it too thickly, and if you apply it over a gloss coat it's hard to tell where you've covered and where you haven't unless you apply it thickly, so I don't know how to ensure that I get an even thin coat. Perhaps if I apply it, wait for it to dry, then go back and get the spot's that I've missed? I don't think that will work. I tried to water one down so I could apply it generously and it would dry to a thin even layer, but that particular varnish was not water soluble so it didn't work. I need to try thinning it again with some acrylic medium or flow improver or something.

So right now I'm back to feeling that there's no point in painting - not if I can't varnish properly. I need to find a solution, but I have so little time and energy and a number of other things that need doing right now. So even though I have several things waiting to be painted and several modeling ideas in my head, I guess it's going to be a while longer.


On a more positive note, I have found it possible to get about a half-hour of programming done on the underground on the way to and from work. On the negative side, since I discovered this my right shoulder has started to ache. A lot. And it's been getting worse.

On a related positive note, I have fixed some old bugs in my engine and cleaned up some rather messy bits, and I'm currently working on an early control system. I have an idea for a much simpler game than the one I described so long ago on this blog, in fact I feel I might actually have a chance of completing this one. If I can get more time to work on it of course. A few friends have even expressed a reluctant acceptance towards the idea of doing some modeling for it, though it's still early for that right now.

More Crimson Fists

I finally finished my second batch of crimson fists. They took far longer than they should have, partly because I was busy and partly because I got bored and put them aside, and partly because I had an idea for the bases that I spent far too long working on before giving up.




Actually, I'm undecided about the bases; I lost one of the ones I was working on and it will be a little hard to replace. They don't look special or anything but they were meant to go together so it just won't work with one missing. I have no idea how I lost it, one day I counted them and there was just one less than there should have been. I have no idea where it could have gone, so I'm really annoyed about it.

Anyway, the flame came out a nice colour quite by coincidence. I had an idea of how to paint it that didn't work out the way I expected (fire is even harder to paint than I thought), and this was the result. Actually I like it, even if it lacks definition - I think it adds a nice bit of detail to the unit.

The transfers are the best yet, but still not perfect. I tried a new technique to apply them: after the models were varnished (to protect the paint) I washed white spirit over the shoulder then applied the transfer in the normal way (before the spirit evaporated of course) then washed more spirit on top. This softens the transfer so it sits better. After it's dry I apply another layer of varnish over the shoulder. You probably can't tell in these photos, but one model's transfer looks worse than the other three - that one I used microsol instead of spirit, and it didn't work as well.

I have four more models to paint for this unit, hopefully these guys won't take as long. After that I'll decide what to do about the bases. In all honesty, I will probably paint a couple of other figures first - I have a number of conversion projects in progress, though they are proceeding at, well, let's call it a 'relaxed' pace.

Abject Failure

I finally decided to try painting one of my Grey Knight models. Not, however, as a Grey Knight. The chaplain took a lot of effort, and I wanted to paint something quick and easy instead of another big project, so I decided to try painting a Ghost Knight. Mordrak and his Ghost Knights are probably my favorite fluff and special rule from the new codex (which, to be honest, is not saying much, but I'll leave that topic for later), so I figured why not start there.

Based on an idea I had for painting Legion of the Damned, I wanted to use glow-in-the-dark paints. I picked these up a while back with the intention of using them on the aforementioned Legion, but never got around to it. So this was an experiment in using those paints, and on achieving an "otherworldly" effect.

The basic idea was instead of the usual method of painted recesses darker and protruding areas lighter to achieve a natural lit effect, to paint recesses in white and higher surfaces darker, to make the model look as if it was lit internally and not reacting to actual lighting. Kind of like the ghosts in Ghost Busters, in a way. I planned to do this by painting a white basecoat of glowing paint then drybrushing it in blue.

The results were terrible. This was partly because of the paint not doing what I expected: it turns out that the paint dries clear, not white. So the metallic primer (I chose metallic with the assumption that it would help reflect the light outwards - that and I don't have any white primer right now) was not actually covered well, and I didn't get the basic colours I wanted. also, the glow effect was very weak and patchy (there are glowing particles in the paint, so a single coat does not give a smooth glowing effect, rather there are spots where it glows). So I had to apply a large number of coats of paint. But I was impatient and the paint took longer than normal model paints to dry, so I applied it too thickly (since it was clear a thin coat was barely visible to the eye so there was a strong temptation to load the brush and place a lot in each stroke, which I succumbed to). And the paint flowed very freely, so it ended up all pooling in recesses. This all made me even less patient and I gave up on having a nice model, so I just threw the paint on to see how thick it needed to be to glow nicely.

The result was that the model lost all detail and still looked metallic, albeit metal covered with something translucent. Then I rushed the drybrush and, because of the complete lack of detail, the drybrush looked terrible and covered too much. So I tried a white "wash"; white paint with a lot of water to fill the recesses (I mixed in some of the glowing paint figuring it couldn't hurt). That just made things worse. The final result? Complete abject failure.


As you can see it looks awful in the light. It doesn't look bad in the dark once it's had a good charge, but it's still not smooth and it takes a LOT of paint to get a reasonably bright glow. Here's a closer look so you can see the spotty glowing effect:



It's possible that those spots are partly due to the watered-down wash I painted over the drybrush, but I don't really think so - every time I checked it it looked spotty. Still, a lot of the problems are down to me not being familiar with the paint and rushing it's application. Actually, it's possible that my choice of model is not suitable either: Grey Knights have a lot of fine detail and different materials, the combination of flowing paper and detailed engraving means it's hard to tell what's happening without the colours. Perhaps a simpler model would be more suitable.

I plan to strip the paint from this model and try again. This time I will mix the glowing paint with white and apply it in very very thin layers, and stop when the white looks good instead of when it glows well. I'm thinking of either painting straight on the model (best done with plastic) as the glowing paint didn't stick to the primer very well. Actually, I suspect this metallic primer might not be very good for painting on as I noticed a little trouble with the Chaplain as well, although the problem seems to be much worse with this glowing paint than with my Citadel paints. Perhaps a wash and/or drybrush applied first might help.

Another thing to try would be to paint the model normally and then paint a few thin layers of glowing paint on top. Thus the model would look normal in the light and glow a little in the dark. Not the quick easy paint job I had in mind, and won't look as good under UV lights, but if I can get a reasonably strong glow it will still be kind of fun.


I also have some glow-in-the-dark clay, the problem is that it needs to be baked hard. I plan to use it for bases and perhaps eyes and blades, other bits of detail etc. However I don't have an oven right now so I can't bake it. I tried mixing it with greenstuff and milliput, but it the mixtures don't harden properly and don't glow brightly, so that's out. When I get an oven I'll come back to it.

Chaplain... of DOOM!

This is actually quite a milestone for me: this is the first model I've painted that I actually LIKE. I don't mean the results of my paint job, I mean the base model itself. Sounds stupid huh? The thing is, I like the 40K world and the space marine fluff, but I just don't like the standard space-marine models. They are supposed to be superhuman futuristic knights-templar, but they look like Star-Wars storm troopers with over-sized shoulders and poorly-designed backpacks. I can live with the shoulders (they are over-sized to allow room for painting detailed insignia and the like anyway), and the backpacks and helmets work for me on the heavy weapons crews, but overall the standard marine model doesn't really appeal to me.

So why did I paint so many? Why have I spent so long painting models I don't really like? Well, it seems I'm conservative by nature - I wanted to improve my skills before I painted the models I DO like - the Grey Knights, the Emperor's Champion... the Chaplain in Terminator Armor.

So I finally decided that it was high time to really start. My painting is not where I want it but I think it's adequate and I just don't have the time to invest in getting much better. Most inportantly I can't be bothered to paint any more models that I don't really care about, so from now on I'm going to concentrate on the ones I do. If I screw up, I'll just strip the paint and start again.

So here we are, my Chaplain in Terminator Armor:







He has a combi-melta/stormbolter (the melta barrel is magnetized but it presses too tightly against the barrels, some varnish and paint was scraped off the first time I took it off, so I'm leaving it on for now). The chaplain in terminator armor is the only model who I think justifies a combi-weapon since it only costs 5 points instead of the usual over-priced 15 (yes, you lose out on one bolter shot at 12-24" range - a small price to pay), and also I wanted his gun to look scary. I didn't want to remove the existing one, which has a fantastic ammo belt (and also a regular bolter would have looked tiny in his hands), and I hate the "stick a melta barrel over one of the holes in the storm bolter barrel", which I think is hideous. Instead I added a melta-pack from the space marine devastator kit to the back, replaced the existing barrels with a longer pair to balance the melta barrel length (and also to move them up - the old ones were much lower leaving very little room for the melta barrel). I also had to build up the front with greenstuff, which came out a little messy.

I left out the iron halo and weird thingies he came with, and I also replaced the hideously-unbalanced mace - the only bits of the original model I don't like. I actually wanted the mace used by the inquisitor model in terminator armor (the one with the gun over his shoulder) displayed in the old Deamonhunter's codex, but I have no idea where that is from so I settled for this Chaos Knight one instead.

Also note the right shoulder. Last time I forgot to point out the symbol of my chapter, the Sentinels Eternal, painted in freehand on the Scout's shoulder: an empty hourglass on a shield. OK, it's not obvious that the hourglass is empty, but it's the best I could do. Anyway, this chaplain is the second model to carry the symbol and this time it's not just painted on. I printed out a shield and hourglass, stuck them to a sheet of plasticard, cut them out as best as my clumsy mitts could manage, stuck them together and used them to make a mold. Then I cast a greenstuff shield in the mold and took it out while it was a little soft (luckily I had just got some instant mold, which does not stick to greenstuff so you can get it out while soft without damaging it), and curled it onto the shoulder.

The main body was painted metallic (Army Painter metal primer - I don't have time anymore and why risk losing details with more coats of paint?), then a layer of heavily watered down black with clear washing up liquid was painted over to get a very black metallic look. I wasn't really happy with how this turned out, I think just mixing black and boltgun would work better (in fact that's what I used for cleaning up after I made some mistakes later and it blended in quite well). The brass turned out a little dark but I figured that fit. I deliberately made the parchment very dark to differentiate it from the skull, which I wanted to stand out and be a focal point for the model. To that end I brushed it with plenty of skull white to get a really pale bone, which contrasts well with the black armor. I painted the eyes as black lenses so they would give the impression of an actual hollow skull, rather than the glowing red I believe the model on the GW site uses.

Unfortunately the model itself showed some problems, I suspect the GW mold is old at this point and has lost some detail. I had to do some cleanup work, especially on the left shoulder, including adding a stud (I forget where I read about this, but someone once suggested using the things in water filter cartridges, which worked quite well - there's a range of sizes so you can find one that fits it well with the ones around it) and trying to file some detail back in to the skull and crossbones. Shame, but I don't think it's too noticeable.




I'm happy with the model overall: black armor, white skull helm, big gun and a heavy blunt weapon - not someone you'd want to run in to in an alleyway late at night. The black is less metallic than I had hoped, the mace lacks depth, and the edge highlighting is a little cruder than I would like. On the other hand I'm proud of the gun and the gems look pretty good (might have to give them another layer of 'ardcoat though), the paper doesn't look too bad and the skull really pops out. So yeah, he'll do.


And yes, I know everyone is into Grey Knights right now. No, I don't like their new codex very much, but I still have the old metal models I bought a year and a half ago sitting around, and I still think they look great, so I'll probably be starting on some of them before too long. Might try to finish my scouts or crimson fists first though, we'll see.

Scout model

I haven't written for a long time; I've been too busy and didn't have anything to write about. However, I recently finished a scout sniper; the first model in my own chapter: the Sentinels Eternal. The colour scheme I'm planning is blue and black, with scouts having a darker palette than the normal battle brothers. This scout is a test model but is very close to how the final models will hopefully look.



Crappy photos due to several camera trouble. Nothing special going on here, paint-wise. The metal detail is Tin Bitz drybrushed with Dwarf Bronze, which created a dark copper look that I'm very happy with. The cloak is just a green base with two green sets of spots and another in Bleached Bone, drybrushed with camo green then washed several times with Devlan Mud and Badab Black. I wanted an olive-green color, but the washes overpowered the spots. I'm still looking for a better way to do it that doesn't require layering or blending (I don't have the time or energy). The skin ended up looked too pale due to a bleached bone drybrush, which looks especially bad due to very dark shading (it's actually not as bad as it looks in these photos, which came out too bright - the blue is actually also a lot darker than the photos make it out). I also threw some grass on the base just because the built-in rock under his foot looks silly without it. I may or may not use grass for the final models.

"In Your Face" Astartes army

I just had an idea for a Space Marines army list. I need to check the Infiltrate / Scout rules to see if this makes sense or can be improved, but the first version goes something like this:

HQ:
Shrike (195)

Troops:
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)

Elites:
8 Assault Terminators (320)

Fast Attack:
10 Scout Bikes (210)
10 Scout Bikes (210)
10 Scout Bikes (210)

Total: 1985 pts


The important thing is that Shrike gives everyone Fleet, and everyone has Infiltrate- this means they can start the game anywhere that is 18" away from the nearest enemy unit, and have an 18" assault range - just enough to touch the nearest enemy units, who then have to pile into them.

That guarantees that your entire army will be in their face on the first turn, barring terrain slowing you down (luckily scouts have Move Through Cover, and I think bikers are not slowed by difficult terrain, the Terminators might not make it but Shrike can split off to ensure that he at least can reach the enemy). If you get first turn, that's pretty devastating - 186 attacks from the scouts, 63 from the bikers, 32 from the termies (assuming claws for the sake of argument) and 5 from Shrike himself, for a total of 286 attacks on the first turn!

Obviously this is just an example, you would really want to trade a unit of Bikers or two for some melta and power fists, which would probably be a good idea since in real life there would be no-way to actually get all your units in close combat right away, but it's still fun to consider.


If you want a more interesting and slightly less spammy list, try this:

HQ:
Shrike (195)

Troops:
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)

Elites:
10 Sternguard Veterans - Drop Pod (285)
10 Sternguard Veterans - Drop Pod (285)
10 Sternguard Veterans - Drop Pod (285)

Fast Attack:
10 Assault Marines (190)
5 Assault Marines - Drop Pod (100)
5 Assault Marines - Drop Pod (100)

Total: 2000 pts

This time we drop the scout bikers and a couple of units of scouts for some Sternguard Veterans in drop pods - the 5-man assault squads give us super-cheap drop pods so we can drop the three Veteran squads in the first turn. That gives us close-up AP3 firepower to back up our (reduced) assault teams. Again, we will probably need to trade for some heavier firepower though.

The point is there's a lot of room for variety while sticking to the basic formula of putting everything in their face in the first turn. For example, first time I wrote the list I had a Librarian with Gate of Infinity instead of the drop pod to carry the third Sternguard unit forward. You can trade the 10-man assault marine squad for assault Terminators or Vanguard Veterans (with or without jump-packs), who obviously get an extra attack and all the wargear you can afford. Or you can trade one or both Veteran squads for a Dreadnought or two in drop-pods (if you can tie up all their anti-tank with your assault units then this is safer, or use smoke and/or cover when they land and assault in following turns), or for Heroic Intervention Vanguard Veterans (while they can assault enemies that your infiltrators may not be able to reach, you cannot predict which turn they will arrive in and deep strike scatter can hurt them). It might be a good idea to trade the small Assault squads for a Tac squad in a drop pod, to better hold objectives.


You know what? Let's try one more time, this time we'll try for a less spammy list than the first but more powerful than the second:

HQ:
Shrike (195)

Troops:
10 Scouts - Telion, Heavy Bolter, 3 Sniper Rifles, 5 CC weapons (200)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)
10 Scouts - CC weapons (140)

Elites:
10 Assault Terminators (400)
Dreadnought - Drop Pod (140)

Fast Attack:
Land Speeder Storm - MultiMelta (75)
Land Speeder Storm - MultiMelta (75)
Land Speeder Storm - MultiMelta (75)

Total: 1860 pts

This time we use Land Speeders to give us a bit more range (by my calculations a scout unit assaulting from a Land Speeder Storm has a 24" assault range, or they can shoot and still assault 18") and some multi-melta firepower. Telion splits off in a 5-man group and snipes special models while sitting on an objective. The Dreadnought is vulnerable but still provides target saturation on the first turn and should put at least one melta attack into the back of a tank before he goes down. And we still have 140 points left, enough for some power fists or a small tac unit to hold objectives or a small Devastator squad with missile launchers or multi-meltas. Upgrading to a Furioso may be a better bet too thanks to it's better armor.


Let me stress that I'm only writing these lists for fun, I wouldn't actually build it - I like variety in my models, and I plan to build an army with as little duplication as possible. Still, it's fun to see what you can do with a codex.