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’.
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.
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.
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