+ The Administratum have a lot to answer for +
+ State-mandated time off hasn't proven to be hugely conducive to my creativity, but having such an unusual stretch of time has given me the time to do a bit of housekeeping. When stuck for hobby motivation, I always find a bit of spring-cleaning remedial – you stumble over bits of projects that got put with something else for one reason or another, and taking a bit of time to get things back together is not only a good way to get rid of clutter, but to bring things together so that bursts of future enthusiasm aren't spent in trying to hunt down a vital bit. +
+ I started by clearing through the garage to rearrange my army cases and bits boxes – Guilliman himself would be proud of how well-ordered they are. I then turned my attention to the bureau where I do most of my hobbying, clearing off the desktop to allow space, and tackled the paint drawer. This had got very muddled; and it only took an hour or two to sort things back into a rough order – the spectrum of colours from left to right; black and white on the left; and oddments like inks and technical paints on the right. +
+ I also took the opportunity to check each paint for usefulness; combining pots of washes where I had duplicates, and tolling the great Bell of Lost Souls on Terra for those pots that had dried up or otherwise become unworkable [+bottom of pict-capture+]. A few irreplaceable veterans there... +
+++
+ Epic +
+ Cobwebs expunged, I dived into a small project – in more than one sense of the word – by building a Knight for Epic/Adeptus Titanicus, and constructing some 'forumware' third party Epic forces. These were one of those much-delayed projects that turned up during the tidy-up. Being unconnected to anything else, they were a nice sideline, and a good way to ease back into modelling. +
+ The Knights are nice models, but for whatever reason I can't get too enthused about them – after the pleasure of building their larger Titan kin, these seemed unnecessarily fiddly. This example didn't do too much to reignite my enthusiasm. +
+ Talking of fiddly, these tanks and infantry avoided becoming tedious because they're just one or two parts. The plywood base toppers were a custom order from Litko, I think. They were ordered at the same time as the models themselves, so my mem-banks have failed, I'm afraid. +
+ Not quite sure how these'll get painted. An expansion for my existing Ultramarines army? A Word Bearers opposing force? Perhaps a mini version of my Gatebreakers? +
+++
+ Betrayal at Calth +
+ Next up in this exploration of enthusiasms was a dive back into the Underworld War between the Word Bearers and Ultramarines on Calth. I continued work on Captain Aethon [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] for the Betrayal at Calth boardgame. +
+ Not a great deal of progress, but the addition of arms and pauldrons makes him look a touch more complete. I'll be popping the pauldrons back off and working up some of the pteruges for the on the upper arms. Bits like this are a pain to kitbash – they rarely drape properly – so sculpting's the best option. +
+ The second angle shows Moricorpus, Aethon's combi-melta. I prefer the over-and-under approach to combi-weapons than the side-by-side arrangement, so used a combi-melta from the Mark IV (possible Mark III) plastics. +
+++
+ Batch-basing +
+ Building itch scratched, I wanted to get back into some painting. I felt the way to make the most of a bad situation was to use this opportunity to do the basing across my whole dwarf army [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. Even with a very basic basing scheme [ref: below], it's proving quite a task. + |
| Rocky soil makes for a good. quick and relatively anonymous basing scheme that'll go well with the PCRC's other existing armies – mainly undead and greenskins. |
_1 Texture the base with Golden Acrylic coarse pumice gel.
_2 Paint the base the Dryad Bark.
_3 Drybrush with Calth Brown (I intentionally stocked up on this wonderful paint when it was deleted alongside the other fantastic Foundations).
_4 Drybrush with a mix of Calth Brown and white.
_5 Paint the rims Dryad Bark.
This gives a quick, simple and fairly uniform result that I can spruce up at a later date with static grass, birch seeds (for fallen leaves) etc.
+ An aside as to why Dryad Bark forms the basis of this scheme: I kept popping into the local shop, trying to find a replacement for the much-missed Scorched Brown, and repeatedly picked this up instead of Rhinox Hide, which (at home) I had thought would be closer to the colour I wanted at the time. For whatever reason, I kept having a mental blank, and assuring myself that Rhinox Hide was the one that I needed to avoid. This happened repeatedly, and checking through my paint drawer (see above), I found five pots of this damn unwanted colour. A salutary lesson in organising properly! Mea culpa... +
+ So far I've managed to get four score based, the majority of which are in the picture above. +
+ This picture shows the remainder of the force. The quarrellers at the front are also based, so it's just the regiment and personalities at the back that need to be polished off. Might even manage it tonight. +
+ ...and to round things off, a quick picture of a game-ready dwarf. A bit more spit and polish needed before I'm happy, but definitely serviceable. +
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