THE UNPAINTED LEGION: December 2015

Merry Christmas!

I’d like to start this blog post with a super-super thank you to my friend Andy and his girlfriend Katie, who sent me an awesome Christmas present all the way from the USA. It arrived today, a limited-edition, web-exclusive, no longer available Space Marine Captain model with a plasma pistol and powerfist.

I got so excited that I already made a base for it this afternoon. I always like to mount HQ units on 40mm bases, even if they’re power armoured infantry models.

This model is pretty cool outright, but it’s made all the more awesome by its timing. I was on the verge of buying a new Space Marine captain model for an extra-special project I have in mind.

Just before Christmas I discovered a company called ‘Mimic Miniatures’.

http://mimicminiatures.com/

Mimic Miniatures make and sell personalised table-top miniatures. They can take a number of photographs of your head taken from different angles and use them to sculpt miniature-scale resin heads that look just like you. You can see some examples on their webpage.

I want to order some and make myself into a Space Marine Captain. How cool would that be? It’s $12 for one head or $22 for 2, 3 or 4. They offer other price breaks for larger quantities too, but four is the most cost effective for me. So I can be a Space Marine Captain, and a Heresy Era Imperial Fists Legion Captain and a Chaos Space Marine Lord and still have a spare head for a future project.

I'll document the project on The Unpainted Legion when I start it.

Martian Ironearth.

I want to theme my Horus Heresy era Imperial Fists army around the companies sent to Mars to secure the forges from the forces of the Dark Mechanicus during the Martian Schism. So I decided to try some of Games Workshop’s ‘Martian Ironearth’ cracking paint for their bases. Cracking paint is a liquid paint that cracks when it dries to resemble parched earth. I’ve never used it before but I’ve read that the thicker you apply it the larger the cracks will be.

I’m using my Legion Centurion Chaplain as a testbed. First I basecoated the base with ‘Mournfang Brown’ and when that had dried I applied the ‘Martian Ironearth’ with a brush. The first thing I noticed is that it’s a lot thicker than normal paint, but it still flows onto the model really well and is very easy to apply. The second thing I noticed is that one pot is not going to go very far. I didn’t apply a very thick layer but I still somehow ended up using a fair bit of paint. That’s not a problem, just don’t expect one pot to be enough for an entire army.

Here’s a picture of the base right after applying ‘Martian Ironearth’

And here is a picture of the base 24 hours later.

It actually dried quite quickly, but I wanted to make sure. If it looks a bit shiny it’s because I applied a liberal coat of varnish because I was worried about it flaking off. A coat of ‘Purity Seal’ when the model is finished will remove the shine. I’m really pleased with the effect and how it turned out, but I’ll probably still add some rust coloured weathering powders when the model is finished to represent the Martian dust.

Tupperware.

I have in the past pilfered my Mum’s cupboards for old Tupperware tubs to keep all the bits of various projects together. On Christmas Eve, we finished work early and I had the rare luxury of being able to have a look around other shops. So I went into a local store and bought an armful of plastic tubs. I’ve used most of them already, and they’re very useful, they were so cheap too I’ll definitely pick up some more. A couple of times lately I’ve had to pick up bits from eBay that I should have had, but couldn’t find, and which I needed for a specific project. These should stop that happening.

Chaos Space Marine Squads.

I have been working on my Chaos Space Marine Squads, but not nearly as much as I intended to or wanted to. They weren’t finished by Christmas and they won’t be finished by New Year’s Eve now either. But I am making progress and small steps towards finishing them. I have now painted all of their backpacks. All that’s left is to paint their torsos and all of the highlights below their necks and to finish off their arms and weapons.

Forge World Death Guard Conversion Set (Plague Marines).

I sort of got a bit of painting fatigue over Christmas so I decided to so some assembling instead. Since I’m in a Chaos infantry mood I decided to start putting together my Plague Marines from the Forge World Death Guard Conversion Set.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-US/Death-Guard-Conversion-Set

I’m afraid I had a bad time. Resin is just so brittle. It’s harder than plastic but it has none of the flexibility. I managed to take chunks out of the top of nearly every single shoulder pad trying to remove the attachment points to the resin block/sprue. Now I’m terrified of working on the Imperial Fists shoulder pads I bought for my Betrayal at Calth models. The helmet horns had also broken off of almost every single model before I even opened the packaging, so I removed the others for the uniformity.

But my biggest upset is the hemispherical hollow or void beneath the torsos for attaching them to the legs. In a plastic model there is no problem connecting the torso to the legs, but these resin torsos are plugged with resin, not completely, but enough that they’ll never sit on top of the legs without serious work. I need some sort of tool to drill out the cavities and remove the excess resin, but I don’t have anything like that and I don’t know what to do next. The whole experience with them kind of sank my hobby enthusiasm.

Black Library Horus Heresy Calendar.

I also got my Horus Heresy 2016 calendar from Black Library in the post today. I can’t believe it was only £14.99. It’s a lot bigger than I was expecting it to be, each picture is 40cm x 30xm and printed on really thick glossy paper. Each picture is easily good enough quality to cut out and frame. I wish I’d bought two copies, I could have framed and sold the individual pieces of artwork on eBay and made a fortune. But that ship has sailed, it was an extremely limited run and I think it sold out almost immediately. I was lucky to get in early, it’s definitely worthwhile subscribing to the Black Library newsletter.

Current Size of the Unpainted Legion: 274 models.

Currently Reading: (Non-Black Library) ‘The Third QI Book of General Ignorance’ by John Lloyd et al.

Awesome news! It looks like I’m going to Salute this year, and even better, I should be going with my brother. I’ve been wanting to go to Salute since I heard about it a couple of years ago on ‘The Independent Characters’ and ‘The Overlords’ podcasts. I think I even booked the time off of work last year, but then didn’t go as I was put off by the travelling involved from West Dorset to London and back.

I ‘Liked’ Salute 2016 on Facebook and my brother asked me if I was going and if I’d mind if he went with me. I don’t get to see my brother very often, so not only do I not mind, I’m now so excited I can barely wait until April. I’ll try and take lots of pictures and post them here and on my Flick account.

http://www.salute.co.uk/salute/salute-2016/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/akasteveuk/albums

I've also booked Saturday 20^th February off of work, so that I can go to another tabletop wargaming convention; ‘Beachhead 2016’ at the BIC in Bournemouth.

http://entoyment.co.uk/beachhead-2016/4588774837

In other news, I finally managed to take a half-decent photograph of the ‘Age of Sigmar’ poster I got from my local toyshop. I know that I can subscribe to White Dwarf now, but I like making my weekly visit to the local toyshop to pick up White Dwarf. Besides it means I can read it at lunchtime when I’m at work on Saturdays. One of the perks of that local patronage is first dibs on Games Workshop promotional materials that are about to be thrown away I guess.

I bought a cheap frame for it on Amazon, it doesn’t quite fit perfectly, but after I paid to have a Black Library print framed in a local framing shop I quickly realised that I can’t afford to get things framed professionally.

I’ve bought a couple of bits and pieces since I last posted. I ordered three packs of Imperial Fists Legion MKIV shoulder pads from Forge World. That should be enough for all of the power armoured infantry models in my ‘Betrayal at Calth’ set. Anything that helps me avoid the nightmare of applying waterslide transfers to curved surfaces is worth £1 per model to me.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Imperial-Fists-Legion-MKIV-Shoulder-Pads

I also pre-ordered the first book in Black Library’s new ‘The Beast Arises’ series; ‘I Am Slaughter’ by Dan Abnett. They had a limited number of matching bookmarks for pre-order customers on a first-come, first-served basis, and I was lucky enough to get one of those too. I’m really looking forward to reading it, just as soon and I finish ‘Legacies of Betrayal’. Although I am slightly worried that Black Library are starting another series before finishing ‘The Horus Heresy’ series. I hope it doesn’t mean that the authors are bored of the earlier setting.

As far as hobby progress goes I am working on two projects at once; two Chaos Space Marine Squads and the contents of my ‘Betrayal at Calth’ boxed set. I have nearly finished putting my ‘Betrayal at Calth’ models together into sub-assemblies. I only have the infantry units’ backpacks and arms left to assemble. I have even undercoated the Chaplain and the Cataphractii Terminator Squad.